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HBO Game of Thrones Recap: First of His Name

May 5, 2014, 3:55 am
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One of the increasingly interesting and baffling things about both this series and to a lesser extent the books upon which it is based is how great shocking moments can come in both very big obvious build ups and in little asides which the casual reader or viewer may not even notice unless they go back and re-watch, re-read or think about it for a second. This episode was one such event. It tied up what was a completely different storyline from the book and had other things happen in different ways. The creators have obviously found their sea legs so to speak. Sometimes this is good and sometimes this isn't. More on that quiet shocking moment in a second.
In King's Landing Tommen is coronated. We also see a more pensive and calculating Cersei. It could all be an act but it seems that she's made a certain peace with Joffrey being gone, even as she says a mother always has a special spot for her firstborn. She admits that Joffrey shocked her. Cersei seems to reach an understanding with Margaery, claiming that Tommen will need a good wife to advise him. Margaery, as is the Tyrell way, claims not to even have given thought to marrying Tommen. Cersei sees through that, obviously, but is not interested in having a fight with Margaery at that point in time, even smiling as Margaery calls her sister. If you remember Cersei had previously threatened to have Margaery killed if she presumed such familiarity again.

Margaery will have to talk to Mace Tyrell to get permission to marry Tommen. 
Cersei is also mellow when she talks to Oberyn, asking after her daughter Myrcella. She bemoans the inability of the powerful to protect all they love but agrees that they can take revenge. And Cersei is even polite to an atypically worried Tywin, who admits to his daughter that the famed Lannister bank accounts have just about run dry. The crown owes a lot of money to the Iron Bank, who is infamous for not taking no for an answer and getting their money back no matter what. Tywin also sympathizes with his daughter about her upcoming marriage to Loras Tyrell and confides in her that he never liked Robert. Of course, worried or not Tywin still is a shrewd man and refuses to discuss Tyrion with Cersei. Cersei asks her father that what good are the sacrifices they've all made for the Lannister future if Tyrion killed it.
Littlefinger has escorted Sansa to the Eyrie where she is to pretend to be Alayne Stone, an illegitimate relative. This pretense need not be carried out in front of Lysa Arryn or her son Robin. Lysa appears to be happy to see her niece and despite youthful insensitivity to death, so is Robin. Of course Lysa is much more happy to see Littlefinger, whom she intends to marry. They've been doing the do for quite some time. When Littlefinger talks of having a marriage later Lysa one ups him by producing the septon and witnesses and getting married immediately. The wedding consummation keeps everyone up at night just as Lysa bragged it would. O-kay. I could sort of feel for Sansa. I mean who wants to listen to their aunt run through her heptatonic orgasm scale?
And now about those quiet shocks. You may remember in Season One, when the Starks were united, safe, happy and blissfully ignorant of and far from King's Landing, that Catelyn Stark received a coded letter from her sister Lysa. This letter informed Catelyn and Ned that the King's Hand Jon Arryn, Lysa's husband and Ned's godfather, had been murdered by the Lannisters. This set off a chain of events that brought Ned and his daughters to King's Landing, put the Starks and Lannisters at each other's throats and culminated in war and the seeming destruction of House Stark. Well, as Lysa reminded Littlefinger in this episode, it was at his insistence that she put those drops in her husband's wine and wrote the letter to Catelyn blaming the Lannisters. Did you get that? Because there will be a test later. As Vito Corleone might have said, Joffrey was a punk. He never could have outfought Ned. But what we never knew until this day was that it was Littlefinger all along! Lysa did what Littlefinger told her to do. She murdered her husband and set up her sister's family. Now she wants the payoff. Well what might make a woman behave that way? 
Jealousy. Sibling rivalry. Lust.
In a great scene Lysa is sharing family stories and lemoncakes with Sansa but we soon learn that the intense look in Lysa's eyes towards Sansa is not relief at seeing what she thinks is her only remaining niece but suspicion that Sansa is out to steal Littlefinger. Lysa also has IMMENSE resentment towards Catelyn for being older and prettier. She even claims that Catelyn was fat.  Have you ever been backed into a corner by a large dangerous dog snarling at you? Because that's what Lysa does here. It's only when a frightened Sansa says she's a stupid virgin that Lysa relents. The crazy in her eyes subsides a bit. Well only a little bit. If I were Sansa I would not want to be around Lysa if there is anything sharp in the near vicinity.
Brienne and Pod and The Hound and Arya are still on their respective road trips. Brienne intends to go to the Wall to find Sansa. These scenes bookend each other as the older member of each group is skeptical (Brienne) or contemptuous (The Hound) of the younger member's martial skills. Ironically Brienne is impressed that Podrick killed Ser Meryn (a Kingsguard) while The Hound is scornful of the fact that Arya's sword instructor Syrio Forel was apparently killed by Ser Meryn, whom The Hound held in quite low regard. The Hound is still on Arya's list. In Meereen Daenerys has heard of Joffrey's murder. Daario has commandeered some ships. Her advisers think it's time to invade although they lack numerical superiority. Upon hearing that the previous cities she liberated have been re-enslaved or fallen into chaos Daenerys decides that she must fix those problems first. Jorah gets some alone time with Daenerys but STILL doesn't make a move. Jorah, does seize the moment mean anything to you? Jorah obviously needs to learn some Game. Send me 19 gold crowns Jorah and I will teach you the three things you never tell a queen, how to deal with pretty boy rivals and the tricks a knight needs to avoid falling into the friend zone.
The episode's balance was taken up by the Night's Watch's attack on its renegade members at Craster's keep. The "good guys" win after a few hairy moments. Bran wargs into Hodor to kill Locke. A freed Ghost kills Rast. Jon Snow kills Karl with an assist from one of Craster's wives/daughters. Under advice from Jojen, Bran decides not to reveal to his brother that he was there. He continues heading North. This storyline was created for the show. As long as they're changing stuff like that it might have been MORE interesting had Bran returned with Jon to the Wall. Public knowledge of Bran's survival makes Roose Bolton's Wardenship of the North very iffy. Of course the Night's Watch is supposed to be neutral. If Bolton, with the authority of the Iron Throne, had sent a force to the Night's Watch to demand Bran Stark, legally speaking the Night's Watch would have had to give him up. But I doubt Jon Snow would have tolerated that. Anyway they didn't go that route.

What I liked
  • The quiet reveal of Littlefinger's and Lysa's responsibility for starting the conflict. It was done a little differently in text but works ok here.
  • The fact that Arya tries to kill The Hound, just as she said she would. It doesn't work but girl's got heart.
  • The ferocity of Lysa's lust for Littlefinger and disdain for Catelyn. The actress really brought this out. The scene with Sansa and the lemoncakes was something else. The large eyes helped quite a bit.
  • The fact that Jon Snow used Commander Mormont's family sword to kill Karl felt very fitting.
What I didn't like
  • The attack on Craster's Keep just felt cliched. The bad guy is more skilled at street fighting than the good guy. Jon is just about to be killed when Karl is stabbed from behind. How many times have we seen something like that in movies?
  • There has been some controversy about the use of rape as a dramatic device. Although this episode was directed by a woman (Michelle MacLaren) I still thought the threatened and attempted rape of Meera Reed was cheesy. Bran, Hodor and the Reeds getting captured in the first place wasn't believable as the Reeds, particularly Meera, are supposed to be almost unparalleled in woodcraft. It's unlikely that renegade Night's Watch members would have been able to sneak up on them.
  • Locke's death before Jon Snow could learn his true purpose there.
*This post is written for discussion of this episode and previous episodes.  If you have book based knowledge of future events please be kind enough not to discuss that here.  NO SPOILERS. NO BOOK DERIVED HINTS ABOUT FUTURE EVENTS. Most of my blog partners have not read the books and would take spoilers most unkindly. Heads, spikes, well you get the idea..
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Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: The Jason Patric Situation

May 6, 2014, 10:59 am
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We've discussed some of the issues around child custody and parental rights before. If you are a man and you impregnate a woman, whether you are married to her or not, there is the strong possibility that the state will force you to, if not act as an actual on site father to your child, to at least pay some of your income to the mother for child support. The amount you pay can depend on a number of factors including how good your lawyers are, what the child has become accustomed to, how rich you are, how much of your income or wealth is legal and easily estimated and identified by child support auditors, how easy you are to locate, which judge you get, how aggressively the mother of your child wishes to pursue child support and how aggressively you wish to pursue joint or sole custody. And if you're married and your wife is playing house with other men, well generally you're also responsible for financially supporting any resulting children even if you don't find out about it until years after the fact. Deal with it. We hear a lot about how too many men refuse to support their kids, to "man up" and marry the mothers of their children or prefer to run around impregnating various women who apparently had the bad luck to slip and fall on the man's you know what. Some people even argue that the rise in single motherhood and/or out of wedlock births is mostly men's fault.

Well maybe. But if there's one thing I know for sure it's that it takes two to tango. The recent story below the fold about the actor Jason Patric and his struggle with one time girlfriend/friend with benefits/paramour/booty call Danielle Schreiber to be included in their son's life was fascinating to me. It reminded me of some of our previous discussions as well as the unacknowledged dangers inherent in alternate family units and new reproductive technologies.


LOS ANGELES — He is a movie star who shot to fame on a motorcycle in “The Lost Boys.” She is a California massage therapist from a prominent East Coast family. Four years ago, with his sperm, her eggs and the wonder of in vitro fertilization, they produced a child. From there, the tale gets very, very messy. For the last two years, Jason Patric and Danielle Schreiber have been waging what has become one of the highest-profile custody fights in the country — one that scrambles a gender stereotype, raises the question of who should be considered a legal parent and challenges state laws that try to bring order to the Wild West of nonanonymous sperm donations. 
Ms. Schreiber, an American civilization graduate of Brown University who runs a Rolfing massage practice in Los Angeles, met Mr. Patric in 2002 when he went to her as a massage client and the two became a couple, dating off and on for a decade.  She had long wanted to be a mother, according to a family member. But pregnancy attempts with Mr. Patric did not go well. “I even had a surgery to increase our chances,” he said in an interview last week. They decided in 2009 (at a time when they were not romantically involved but still friendly) to pursue artificial insemination. Along came Gus, named after Ms. Schreiber’s paternal grandfather.  
The baby eventually helped rekindle a romance between Ms. Schreiber and Mr. Patric, although they never formally moved in together. For the next two years, Mr. Patric said that he played a parental role (“I took him to get circumcised when he was 8 days old”) and that Gus, now 4, referred to him as “Dada” in videos and messages. “Thank you for teaching me to pee in the toilet, watch airplanes, learn Beatles songs. I love you Dada, Gus,” read a card that was written by Ms. Schreiber, given to Mr. Patric and later presented as evidence in court.  Then, in June 2012, the couple broke up for good. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Patric filed a paternity suit for shared custody. According to both sides, there was legal mediation, during which time Gus continued to see Mr. Patric. But then, according to court filings, Ms. Schreiber abruptly started to withhold visits....
LINK 
Now I know of some men who are pretty crappy fathers. I also know of some women who are horrible mothers. It's just part of life. I have friends of both genders who occasionally vent about how much they hate their ex. I can sympathize. However absent some clear proof of threat, violence or unfitness, I don't think either parent should be able to unilaterally exclude the other parent from their child's life. I don't think that the child's relationship with their parent should be hostage to how the other parent feels. Again, obviously this idea of mine doesn't apply to child molesters, drunks, substance abusers, rapists, abusers, other criminals, etc. I can count the women I truly hate in this world on the fingers of one hand and still have most fingers left. Fortunately I do not have children with them. But if I did I would have to find a way, even if only for the child's sake to be (temporarily) civil, and allow the child to have a relationship with his or her mother. It's not my right to interfere with that. In my view it's almost sinful. That goes for either gender. I am suspicious of Schreiber's restraining order, coming as it did in a custody dispute.

So I think it's a little unfair and hypocritical for society to castigate men for shirking fatherly responsibilities and then turn around and try to prevent a man from doing just that. But maybe Patric should never have agreed to donate his sperm. Maybe he should have insisted on marrying this woman and/or doing things the old way. So maybe he's just out of luck. I certainly don't think that we should use this case to tear down anonymity for egg/sperm donors or allow such anonymous donors to show up out of the blue years later and start demanding parental rights. But to focus on the in vitro aspect of this case as Schreiber's partisans would like to do misses the point that this child, however he was conceived, was the product of two people who had an ongoing relationship with one another.

If we say that Patric has no parental rights because he was unmarried and/or used the wrong sort of technology to become a biological father then it seems we'd have to make other changes. Should we also say that no unmarried man has the right to demand fatherly rights AND that no unmarried woman has the right to demand child support? Somehow I think that second part would get more people's attention. Not married to the father? Sorry lady, no child support for your child. Better luck next time. Most people, and certainly not just unmarried mothers, would see that rule as horribly unfair to the child. Well isn't it horribly unfair to a child to prevent him or her from having a relationship with the father?


Thoughts?

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Detroit Teacher Fired For Using Broom To Break Up Fighting Students

May 7, 2014, 4:34 am
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"She ain't wait. That's who she deserve."

I didn't go to Detroit Public Schools until high school. It was private school/parochial school until then. And the high school I attended was something akin to a charter school. You had to pass an entrance exam. This cut down on the knuckleheads and riff raff. The violence was minimal, almost non-existent. Kids will be kids but I can't even remember fights in school. Sure you had a few smart wannabe hoodlums but once you got to know them they were nice people. I'm told my old school has changed since then. But I still don't think it's anything like Pershing. Pershing has always been a school for dummies and real hoodlums. So that there was a fight in a Pershing classroom didn't surprise me. A fight at Pershing is like shooting at a gun range. It's what you expect. The small female teacher tried to break up the fight by smacking one of the assailants with a broom. This didn't work. The brawl continued until other male students decided to end the fracas. But the teacher, who was not supposed to leave the room and didn't have any way to call for help, was fired for hitting one of the combatants. Her case allegedly could also be referred for child abuse investigation.

Yes, that makes sense. NOT. Her termination surprised me. I respect the heck out of teachers. But I could never be a teacher. They have too many stupid rules. They deal with too many stupid people. And if a classroom fight occurs, God forbid they try to stop it lest they lose their jobs. Years ago a relative told me there was very little learning going on in some Detroit schools. And he was right. A football star who body slams a security guard gets a plea deal and goes back to school in apparent violation of state law while a teacher trying to restore order to a classroom is fired. Gee, that must do wonders for employee morale, huh? Words don't really do justice to this scene so check out the video below. And folks wonder why people are leaving DPS...



Fox 2 News Headlines
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Movie Reviews: The Sacrament, The Wolverine, 13 Sins

May 10, 2014, 3:00 am
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The Sacrament
directed by T.I. West
The Sacrament was directed by one of the actors who was in You're Next and stars three of that movie's leads. I don't remember the first time I really felt the presence of real evil in the world. But certainly one of the earliest moments had to have been the Jonestown Massacre. I was just a child when it happened but all these years later I still remember the pics of the massed corpses, most of them black, huddled together, even the kids, in the ugly and final equality of death. There are plenty of conspiracy theories about Jim Jones, alleged CIA links he had, and whether Jonestown was an MK-ULTRA experiment. Some claim that only a few people killed themselves and that most Jonestown residents were actually killed by mercenaries or even more outrageously US special forces. I don't know about any of that. It doesn't really matter. What does matter is that over 900 people, including many children and young adults went to a foreign country because a swindler and megalomaniac convinced them to do so. They gave up their meager savings, social security checks, passports and family ties because he told them to do so. And they drank the Kool-Aid, were injected with poison, or were shot dead.

We read vampire stories about reanimated corpses who survive on human blood and convert their victims into willing slaves. Well there are real life vampires out there. Jim Jones was one such beast. He victimized people who had already been deeply harmed by racism, capitalism, rape, molestation, family alienation, the criminal justice system or other failed institutions. These people, a great many of them older women, really needed someone to love them and tell them they mattered. Instead Jones turned their desperate hopes into fear. He used the damage they had suffered to turn them into dead trophies to his own insanity or willing accomplices to suicide, murder and mayhem. Like a tick he grew swollen on the adulation of others. When that worship was threatened, no matter how remotely, the parasite destroyed the host rather than set it free. The Sacrament is then a re-interpretation of how the Jonestown Massacre occurred. It skillfully mixes reality (VICE magazine) and fiction in an intoxicating and grim melange that builds suspense even though we think we know what's going to happen.
Sam (A.J Bowen) and Jake (Joe Swanberg) are journalists for VICE magazine. They are proud to handle stories which the corporate media won't touch. When their primary photographer Patrick (Kentucker Audley) suddenly hears from his long lost junkie sister Caroline (Amy Seimetz) he wants to accept her invitation to visit. Sam and Jake ask to tag along with Patrick as Caroline has moved out of the country to a commune named Eden Parrish. There have been rumors about this place. Sam and Jake would love to do a story on it. And the fact that their photographer has a personal link to Eden Parrish makes them even more interested. Upon arrival the three men are a bit nonplussed by the presence of armed guards but feel better upon meeting Caroline who seems to enjoy some authority within the commune. They also meet a diverse group of people, all of whom seem to be happy, despite having left most technology and creature comforts behind in the U.S.

The commune religious leader, known as Father (Gene Jones), agrees to an interview but insists on having it in front of the entire congregation. During that interview Father lets his genial mask slip ever so slightly (though the creepy shaded glasses stay on) and Sam's suspicions are raised. If you've ever read Mario Puzo's The Godfather you know that one of Vito's constant instructions to his sons was to never make an open threat. We see that threat here or think we do. Sam can't be sure. It's ambiguous but given the context, it really isn't. I liked the writing and Jones' acting. Just one additional bit of information can cause a massive shift in your perceptions. I think the filmmakers could have given a little more explanation of how the people who followed Father to Eden Parrish saw him and why so many of them were fanatically loyal. There is a part of love which is almost madness which makes you give yourself over completely to the other person. People need this. Father seems to offer this. 
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The Wolverine
directed by James Mangold
I think part of the reason that Japan looms large in the Western imagination is because it was one of the few modern non-Caucasian nations to not only escape European colonialism and settlement but also for a while even beat the Western nations at their own game of imperialism and conquest. Anyway this movie is similar to The 47th Samurai, The Last Samurai or any number of other stories which have a Japanese and a Westerner entangled in bonds of honor and obligation. So the story is not something which is new but who cares, right. Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is a baaaaaaaaaad man who protects his friends, harms his enemies and obviously spends a lot of time at the gym. This was a fun movie with the proper amount of hijinks, derring do and last minute rescues. Logan is hiding out brooding over his dead love Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) and making examples of hunters when he is located by Yukio (Rila Fukushima) the cutest little assassin/action girl you ever did see. Yukio, who can see the future on occasion, is not there to kill Logan. She has a message for him.

Yukio works for the Japanese corporate CEO Yashida (Haruhiko Yamanouchi) who is dying. Yashida and Logan are linked together. As a POW in the last days of WW2, Logan saved Yashida's life during the bombing of Nagasaki. Yashida views this as a debt he's never paid and so wants to see Logan before he kicks the bucket.
Being nothing if not understanding of honor and fellow warriors, Logan decides to go to Japan to pay his final respects. There he sees Yashida. But Yashida's idea of paying his debt to Logan isn't just kind words or a samurai sword. No, Yashida somehow knows that Logan is conflicted about his mutant healing abilities, which confer virtual immortality. Outliving all his loves has left Logan lonely, bitter and cynical. Yashida's bio-tech company has been at the cutting edge of some very interesting research. Yashida offers to remove Logan's healing factor and transfer it to himself, thus saving his life and allowing Logan to die naturally at some future point. What a guy. Logan declines the offer. Although at times he hates his abilities, they are his abilities. Yashida dies and a power struggle breaks out for his company, which is supposed to pass to his granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto). Logan saves Mariko from an assassination/kidnap attempt but discovers in the aftermath that something is off about his healing factor. The "doctor" Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova), literally a femme fatale, probably has something to do with that. All the usual special effects, double crosses, street fights, bada$$ one liners and set piece battles take place. If you like action or like Jackman, this will be an enjoyable flick.
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13 Sins
directed by Daniel Stamm
This is a remake of an Asian horror/black comedy film. Initially it raises some interesting questions about how much we all need money and what we'd be willing to do to get a lot of it. For some of us that might mean working 50 hours per week with people we generally dislike doing things we don't much care about for 40 years. Other people might view that as an intolerable constraint on their happiness. Some people might look for the big score or decide that little things like legalities are for other people. Anyway most of us probably want more money, whatever lies we tell ourselves, our friends or our loved ones. Elliot (Mark Webber) is a salesman. What he sells isn't very important. What is important is that he's not very vested in his work, something which his greedy and sadistic boss has noticed.
Elliot still has a conscience about sales and often holds back from selling stupid people things they don't need. So even though Elliot has just completed the biggest sale he's ever made his boss has decided that Elliot isn't cut out for the job. The boss thinks that Elliot lacks the necessities. The boss thinks himself proven correct in his opinion when Elliot doesn't curse at him, get in his face, punch him out or do anything which might hint that Elliot actually does have a swinging pair. I thought the film should have continued this examination of gender expectations but it put those aside. As Elliot mopes and whines his boss gleefully fires him. This scene resonated with me as there are definitely situations in life where people test you to see just how much testosterone you have/how much crap they can get away with. Elliot fails his test. Elliot does have needs. He has to support his mentally challenged brother (Devon Graye) and his caustic, cranky bigoted father (Tom Bower). Elliot is engaged to marry his sweet supportive relentlessly happy fiancee (Rutina Wesley). Not having money and not having health insurance makes doing all of these things much more difficult if not impossible. Could you look into the eyes of your disabled brother and tell him that yes even though you promised always to take care of him he'll have to go into a public institution?


While he's driving home, Elliot's cell phone rings. A cheery man with a British/Commonwealth accent tells Elliot that he's been chosen to play a game. There are 13 challenges to overcome. Should Elliot complete them all he will get $6,000,000. Each challenge Elliot performs will result in monies deposited into his bank account. Quitting the game, telling anyone about the game or refusing a challenge means he loses all the money he's won so far. Elliot decides to play the game. The first challenge is to swat the fly in his car. Elliot is taken aback by the knowledge that he's apparently under surveillance but decides to go for it. The second challenge is to eat the fly which he does as well. The challenges become more dangerous and crueler. Elliot comes to the attention of Detective Chillicoat (Ron Pearlman doing his trademark worldweary take on things). Pearlman gives this movie some much needed gravitas. There are a few comedic moments as well as nods to conspiracy theories. I wonder if 13 Sins would have been better had Pearlman and Webber switched roles. This was an okay watch if you're into that sort of thing but not something I would remember a year later.  I'm skipping the trailer here because it shares too much. 
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Why Republicans Stay Losing

May 11, 2014, 6:51 am
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"Benghazi!"  "Oooh, say it again!"  "Benghazi!"  "Oooh, say it again!""Benghazi!""Oooh..."

You ever tune in to watch your favorite weekly TV show only to find that it's a re-run?  Or worse yet, you're coasting along with your significant other only to somehow wind up repeating the same argument that you've had for years?  Magnify that moment of realization by about a thousand and that just might put you in the ballpark of where the American people (myself included) are at when we hear that the Republicans want to rehash Benghazi-gate:



Per USA Today: 
WASHINGTON – House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, announced the full roster of the GOP lawmakers who will serve on a new committee to investigate the 2012 terrorist attack that killed four Americans in Benghazi, but it remains unclear whether Democrats will participate or boycott the investigation.
Aides for Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., are in talks over how the panel will operate. The negotiations have so far failed to appease Democrats who want shared authority to issue subpoenas, interview witnesses and determine what can be released to the public.
Republicans had previously rebuffed Democratic demands for equal representation on the 12-member panel, which has a 7-5 ratio in the GOP's favor.
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"This investigation is about getting answers for the families of the victims and for the American people," Boehner said, "These members have each demonstrated a commitment to this goal, and I have confidence that they will lead a serious, fact-based inquiry."

Dude, please.  This is not about getting answers for families.  We all know what this is about:

Per WaPo:
Today's Daily Digit is brought to you by the fine folks up on Capitol Hill, who have mentioned the word "Benghazi" 72 times during floor speeches in the past eight days, according to data compiled by the Sunlight Foundation.
Ninety-eight percent of the mentions since January have come from Republicans.
Meanwhile, the word formerly known as the hottest buzzword of 2014 has gone incognito. Earlier in the year, Republicans stubbornly insisted that if they said Obamacare three (million) times, their 50+ senate seats would appear. However, "Obamacare" has been mentioned a paltry 19 times in floor speeches in those eight days.
Republicans seem to have found a new word to hang their 2014 hopes on.

In other words, politics as usual.  If Republicans were truly trying to seek justice for the victims of the 4 Americans who were killed in Benghazi 2 years ago, they woud be concentrating their energy on the radicals who actually did the killing -- not on other Americans.  But they don't want to go after the killers.  They'd rather go after the Obama Administration.  Why?  Because this is a an election year, don't you know.  And nothing seemed to move the Republican base more during the 2012 campaign than Benghazi. 

This is, however, a short sighted strategy.  To the extent that any midterm seats are decided exclusively by the right-wing base (aka the Tea Party), then by all means "Benghazi" away until your heart is content.  But to the extent that winning any midterm seats will require more than just the right-wing base (aka Democrats, Independents and moderate-Republicans) then this conversation comes off as an annoying re-run that actually hurts -- not helps -- the Republican chances of winning more seats in the House and Senate. 

So by all means, Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi.


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HBO Game of Thrones Recap: The Laws of Gods and Men

May 12, 2014, 3:41 am
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Have you ever been hurt very badly emotionally? I mean really stretched to your breaking point and even broken? I've found that the only people who can do that are almost by definition people with whom you have intimate vital relationships. That is to say siblings, parents and long standing providers of your nookie. Generally speaking nobody else can get close enough to stick the knife into you. Nobody else knows exactly where to strike to do the most damage. Both Yara Greyjoy and Tyrion Lannister discover that the hard way. More on that in a minute. Stannis Baratheon and Davos Seaworth, being short on money and resources decide to take a long shot, actually their only shot and travel to Braavos to request a loan from the legendary Iron Bank. Stannis thinks this should be a slam dunk as he is the rightful king of Westeros. But as another man once told Daenerys in a similar situation there is a bit of a problem in trying to borrow or demand resources from people on the basis that you're ruler of all Westeros when in truth you don't actually rule Westeros. The bankers, especially the lead banker Tycho, force Stannis to admit that he only has a handful of ships and men, lost his last battle and lacks resources to fight a war or pay the bank back. They deny the loan and would prefer Stannis and Davos depart immediately. Business is business. Nothing personal you know.

In a scene which perfectly reflects the relationship between Davos and Stannis, Stannis silently asks Davos for help. Stannis is far too proud to actually verbalize the request. Davos makes an impassioned argument that the war is not over until Stannis dies. Davos tells the Iron Bank that by backing Stannis the bank will have a better chance of getting its money back since the elderly Tywin Lannister can't be long for this world. Davos emphasizes Stannis' rectitude by revealing his own amputated fingers. This speech evidently works. Davos' old buddy Salladhor Saan is relaxing in the hot tub with two women when Davos stops by to pay him and to tell him that they're putting the band back together. The war is back on!

In Meereen Daenerys learns that giving justice is not as simple as conquering is. We see that her dragons attacked a goat herd and made off with some goats. When the herder comes to her she offers him three times the value of the goats. Sounds good but what if everyone starts to claim damages? And shouldn't she have a better way of feeding her dragons? What sort of ruler lets dragons just fly around the countryside doing whatever they want?  But that's small potatoes to the next claimant. Hizdahr Zo Loraq is a member of the noble class. His father was one of those whom Daenerys crucified. In a nod to the Antigone tragedy, Hizdahr claims that all he wants is a proper burial for his father, whom he claims was actually against the crucifixion of slave children. He begs the queen for this. After some back and forth Daenerys allows the burial to proceed. Not letting people be buried is an atrocity. Was Daenerys' decision an act of mercy or one of weakness? Time will tell. Life is not necessarily as black and white as Daenerys thought it was.
Yara has finally reached the Dreadfort and has scaled it with her merry band of killers. We see an impressive speech in montage as she implores her men to remember what was done to her brother Theon was done to them all. They're IRONBORN dammit! Nobody does that to them and lives to talk about it. I'm not sure about the mental capacity of the Northern Lords. Haven't they ever heard of perimeter security? What's the freaking point of having a castle if people can just climb right in anytime they want? Anyway Yara and crew are handling their business Greyjoy style, until they finally reach Theon, kept not in dungeons but in kennels.  As we know already Theon has long since lost his identity. Theon thinks Yara's appearance is a Ramsay trick.  He refuses to answer to his name and has to be dragged out of the cage. This is what enslavement does to people. It's an ugly scene. It's only fantasy of course but was quite reminiscent of events in real life. When Ramsay counterattacks,  Theon runs back into the cage. When Yara makes a last attempt to rescue her brother he actually bites her. The emotional damage is probably more hurtful to Yara than the physical. Fleeing, she tells her waiting men that her brother is dead.
The episode's balance takes place in King's Landing. Again Charles Dance deserves so much credit for his Tywin Lannister but Peter Dinklage matches him as Tyrion Lannister in Sunday's show. At the King's Landing Small Council meeting Tywin discusses his concerns about Daenerys, The Hound's continued existence, and how to deal with the Unsullied. Tywin thinks armies win wars, not dragons. Varys says that Jorah Mormont is no longer giving information on Daenerys. We also see that Tywin absentmindedly treats Mace Tyrell as a secretary. Later in a conversation between Prince Oberyn and Varys we learn that Oberyn spent five years in Essos. This allows him to correctly guess that Varys is from Lys. Varys doesn't want to talk about that but does claim to be asexual and only interested in power.
The trial has opened. It's an obvious railroad job. Tyrion is chained in the defendant's stand while witness after witness comes forward and talks of how they never liked or trusted him. As any liar would tell you, the most convincing lies are those mixed with bits of truth. Ser Meryn, Pycelle, Cersei and even Varys all tell of hostile statements (taken out of context) made by Tyrion. Pycelle even claims that Tyrion stole poisons from him. Dontos' body has been found. Sansa's necklace was with it of course and has poison residue. This of course is considered to be proof of Tyrion's and Sansa's involvement. In anything approaching a fair trial someone would ask Pycelle what was HE doing with poison in the first place and why didn't he report anything stolen but this isn't a fair trial. Other than saying and repeating that he didn't do it Tyrion isn't allowed to speak. And when he is his trademark witticisms/sarcasm have left him. Anger is all he has. Jaime is increasingly discomfited by this and confronts Tywin during a lunch break. Tywin may not know or even care who killed Joffrey but he does know what he wants. And so does Jaime. In exchange for Tywin showing mercy and sending Tyrion to the Wall, Jaime agrees to resign from the Kingsguard and become the heir his father always wanted in order to continue the Lannister name. In a snarky aside that imo shows that yes Tywin really does know about the incest, Tywin orders Jaime to marry a woman and "father children named Lannister!".
OK. 
Feeling a little better, Jaime tells Tyrion to be cool and once found guilty to ask mercy. Tyrion isn't sure about this but we know that the brothers love and trust each other. But as I mentioned before everyone has their breaking point. Tyrion's is reached when Shae is brought in as a witness against him. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Shae lies outrageously about plots between Sansa and Tyrion, claiming that Tyrion agreed to murder Joffrey to consummate his marriage with Sansa. Shae has very obviously been coached. Shae speaks dispassionately about her status as prostitute for Tyrion. This last, finally is simply too much for Tyrion to take. The woman he loved is trying to get him killed or exiled and his family is helping her do it.
In an angry and incredibly intense outburst Tyrion again says he didn't kill Joffrey but wishes that he had. He says he's on trial for being a dwarf and by the way f*** all of y'all! He wishes he could have been the monster that everyone thinks he is. He wishes he had let the city burn. He demands trial by combat.
What I liked
  • I thought that this was the best episode of the series, save Joffrey's assassination. 
  • Tywin uses the trial as a gambit to force one son to do what Twyin wants while getting rid of another son. That's using the law to your advantage, something Tywin knows all about. He's the ultimate pragmatist. He may think incest is wrong but he's gonna play the hand he's been dealt.
  • Varys' dismissal of desire as being dangerous fits in very well with Tyrion's predicament. All Tyrion has ever wanted is romantic love from a woman and familial love and respect. To have him brought so low and finally accept that he can't have either of those things was a milestone for the character. Even in his outburst at his father you could see the love, that hurt and rejected, has turned to hate. If Tyrion hadn't had desire he wouldn't have tried to protect the city or protect Shae.
  • Very little that Littlefinger does is by accident. The discovery of Dontos' corpse with the necklace makes Sansa look even more guilty which increases her dependence on Littlefinger. It obviously puts Tyrion in a very bad place. I'm sure Littlefinger, thru appropriate cut outs, told people where to find Dontos. He set Tyrion up very effectively.
  • Shae's return. This means that either Bronn sold Tyrion out or Cersei's/Tywin's people were closer than Bronn had thought. It will be interesting to see if we learn what happened. Was Shae tortured? Was she acting from spite? Was she paid off?
  • Theon's aka Reek's psychological destruction. Well I don't mean that I liked it per se but it showed that Ramsay Snow is a total monster. He's able to infest people's minds even when he's not around. It's enslavement. It's mental torture/rape. It's evil. And given the amusement with which Ramsay viewed Reek's tortured, naked body was I the only one who thought that Ramsay was about to rape Reek? It didn't seem out of the realm of possibility. The violence against Theon is as painful as anything in the show.
  • Jaime's willingness to sacrifice his relationship with Cersei and his Kingsguard position, two things which define him, in order to save his brother's life.
What I didn't like
  • Although I liked the exposure of the depths to which Theon has fallen I still thought the scene was a little rushed. Why wouldn't the Ironborn have immediately killed Ramsay's dogs and pulled Theon out, regardless of whether he wanted to go. This was a departure from the books.
  • The running time was a little shorter than normal. 
  • Pycelle tested the residue on the necklace? CSI: Westeros?
*This post is written for discussion of this episode and previous episodes.  If you have book based knowledge of future events please be kind enough not to discuss that here.  NO SPOILERS. NO BOOK DERIVED HINTS ABOUT FUTURE EVENTS. Most of my blog partners have not read the books and would take spoilers most unkindly. Heads, spikes, well you get the idea..

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Donald Sterling on Magic Johnson (Video)

May 13, 2014, 11:01 am
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Life has me tied up a bit. However, I heard a few quotes from this interview last evening and thought it was necessary to share. 

FYI - Magic Johnson was diagnosed with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)  the virus that causes Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). I just wanted to put that out there since Donald Sterling falsely diagnosed Magic Johnson with a disease that he doesn't have. 

I'll be back later this week to address Donald's comments on Magic. 

Enjoy....
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More Taxes for Michigan Roads?

May 15, 2014, 7:51 am
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One of the reasons for encouraging people to use less gasoline and more green technology was not only to help reduce pollution but also to reduce wear and tear on the roads. Ultimately for pollution's sake it might be better for us all to be driving hybrids or electric vehicles. Or for the roads' sake more of us should be bicycling or taking mass transit. But in the mean time the auto companies should be compelled to increase CAFE standards while consumers should be encouraged to car pool, bicycle, walk to work, use mass transit and do other things which will result in less use of gasoline. One person who's almost comically gung-ho about this is NYT Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Thomas Friedman, who has a 70% chance of working his support for a carbon tax into any column he writes, no matter the subject matter. Mid-East Peace? Carbon tax will solve it. Islamic Terrorism? Carbon tax will hit the spot. Russia making ominous noises? A carbon tax will settle their hash. China polluting the entire planet? Obviously we need a carbon tax. Donald Sterling situation? A carbon tax would have prevented it. And so on. Vehicles are more fuel efficient than they used to be. Gasoline costs more than it used to. And people don't buy as many cars or drive as much as they used to. So you would think that the state would be happy about this right? We're cutting back on emissions and getting more out of less: the very definition of efficiency. That's good, right?

Well not so fast partner.


You see all that fuel efficiency and higher CAFE standards and bicycling to work may be good for the environment and for politicians who have made it their business to be seen as standing up against older methods of energy generation but they're not good for state revenue. When people buy less gasoline they also pay less gasoline tax. Less money coming into the state coffers means the state either has to (a) be wiser and smarter with less or (b) find a way to shake citizens down to make up the difference. If you know anything about Michigan politicians (or politicians anywhere) you can hazard an informed guess about which choice they would likely prefer. 

LANSING — Michigan could solve its road funding problems by being one of the first states in the nation to move to a system where motorists pay a fee based on the number of miles they drive, according to a University of Michigan report to be released today. The report, prepared for the Michigan Environmental Council by Sustainable Mobility & Accessibility Research & Transformation (SMART) at U-M, says fuel consumption is declining as traditional vehicles become more efficient and electric vehicles more common. 

Together, those trends are making road funding models based on fuel taxes obsolete, the report says. Instead of continuing to raise fuel taxes to pay for transportation infrastructure a mileage fee could more fairly allocate costs based on the number of miles driven, the time of day, the route taken, and the weight of the vehicle,” the report says. Elizabeth Treutel, a master of urban planning candidate at U-M and one of the authors of the report, said moving to such a system is probably five to 10 years away, but the report is partly intended to start a conversation.

LINK
Let me be perfectly clear, as our President likes to say. Climate change is real. I support less pollution, better roads, and within reason, certain higher CAFE standards. Lord knows I've spent more than my share of money because of issues caused by potholes. But as you might have noticed I also have this strange preoccupation with privacy. I just don't think it's any of the state's business how much I drive each year. I don't think there is any non-intrusive method for them to obtain that information. And if you're going to make people pay for the number of miles they drive then frankly I would just as soon the state (speaking federal and Michigan here) get out of the business of twisting arms to get companies to produce little hybrid/electric clown cars that at least in Michigan are not super popular. I have a 45 minute one way commute on a good day. I don't think it's "fair" to charge me more because I was not fortunate enough to find a job closer to home. And by "fair" I also mean in my interest. There are people who outearn me by factors of five, ten or more who may have a 10 minute commute. Is it really right that they would pay less tax than I do?

I also don't like the baked in presumption that that the state is guaranteed some fixed amount of revenue from citizens. They wanted us to use less gasoline; we're using less gasoline. Now that's no good because their tax revenue is declining? That is not my problem. If I were running things I would suggest cutting the truck weight limits in half and giving businesses more incentive to transport items by train. There are far too many semi-trailers or other large trucks on Michigan roads. That's where the road damage starts if you ask me. I also think the standards for roads are far too low. Other states in the upper Midwest don't seem to have the kinds of roads with which Michigan is cursed so I don't think the problem is weather related. So right now I'd want to know more about who's fixing the roads and why are they doing such a poor job before I'd support giving them more money.

But what's your call?

Is a tax based on mileage rather than gasoline usage fair?

If you were the state what would you do when faced with declining gas tax revenue?

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Stereotypes and Commercials: Haagen-Dazs and Pepsi

May 16, 2014, 8:10 am
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Stereotypes are always tricky things. There are actual national differences, ethnic differences, gender differences and maybe even racial differences. But there's a thin line between having a honest good natured laugh at what everyone (or almost everyone) agrees is a difference and between (maliciously??) poking fun at something that not everyone agrees is a difference or is even funny at all. I don't watch a lot of television so even though this Haagen-Dazs gelato commercial has apparently been out there for a while I just recently saw it. After watching it I had two thoughts. My first thought was that the ad was a little stereotypical. My second thought was I wondered what the actress' name was. There were some people of Italian descent who had a serious problem with the commercial while others I know were not bothered in the slightest because it was clear to them that the commercial was spoofing stereotypes about Italians and not Italian-Americans. Of course if you must be stereotyped, being thought of as passionate, hot tempered, sexy and intense is not necessarily the worst stereotype to bear. Or is it?


Of course like any other stereotype, positive stereotypes can come along with a huge unseen cost attached. People who endorse stereotypes consciously or not may have some difficulty treating members of that group fairly and on an individual basis. Or they may not. People are complex after all. Just because you laugh at a joke in the abstract doesn't necessarily mean you will treat the real life object of that joke as less than. You also may remember the Pepsi Max "Love Hurts" commercial in which we saw a large black woman constantly comically assault her boyfriend/husband because he wasn't eating right. Near the end, annoyed that he smiled at a blonde white woman, she threw a can at his head, missed and hit the other woman instead. The couple then ran off.
Some people didn't necessarily find that commercial or its use of Three Stooges type violence and stereotypes very funny. Other folks might think in either case no harm is intended or being done and those who claim offense need surgery to remove the broomstick that has apparently inserted itself somewhere unpleasant in their body. I can't call it. Sometimes everything is funny until it's your group being mocked. Then again there is very offensive racist humor out there that's not funny except to people who really do hate the group that is the object of the joke.

Did you think the Haagen-Dazs Gelato commercial was humorous?

Do you see any difference between the Haagen-Dazs and Pepsi commercial?

Has society become too uptight on issues like these?

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Book Reviews: The Friends of Eddie Coyle, American Desperado, Paris: A City Revealed

May 17, 2014, 3:00 am
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The Friends of Eddie Coyle
by George Higgins
Decades ago I saw bits and pieces of the movie based on this book on Detroit's ABC Channel 7 4:30 movie. I was only a kid and didn't remember much about it other than Robert Mitchum, who played the title role, was one suave dude. Over the intervening years I have read or listened to multiple people rave about how this book is a crime classic that kicked off a more realistic and less operatic or moralistic wave of modern crime stories. It was supposedly Tarantino before Tarantino. Tarantino did use the name of a story character for a movie title. So I finally decided to read this book. It's a good story though it's more Death of a Salesman transferred to the criminal world than a mob shoot em up. The cops and criminals are marking time and punching a clock instead of having any sort of dedication or zeal to catching felons or making criminal scores. They just do their job and go home. The reader may be positively impressed by the book's dialogue which dominates the text. The criminals and cops like to talk. But they aren't speaking theatrically of how "Our true enemy has yet to reveal himself" or "What I never knew until this day was that it was Barzini all along". No. Higgins is not that kind of writer. His characters are meat and potatoes guys and gals. They whine about how they can't get any sleep because they've been on the road too long, complain of their boyfriend's crude public comments on their body/sexual skills or pitch a fit about not having the proper sandwich condiments. So yes I think this book and the movie it inspired probably influenced many later writers. The story read like a play. Like many books that are mostly dialogue it can initially be a little difficult to follow what's happening as the people talking to each other already know the unspoken assumptions concerning the subject matter under discussion.
This book deglamorises organized crime. Although the Mafia is in the background and spoken of obliquely, the book examines folks who are not Mafia members, though they may work with or be related to them. This is set in Boston. So most of the criminals and cops are of Irish background.
Eddie Coyle is an aging gangster. He's a criminal jack of all trades. You looking for some sex movies? Eddie can help. Are you in need of fireworks or bootleg liquor? Eddie's the one to see. Eddie knows the rules but is a fading player. Small time. No one on either side of the law fears or respects him. Eddie's current primary business is gun dealing. Eddie was recently busted in New Hampshire for transporting bootleg whiskey across state lines. Eddie kept his mouth shut about whose whiskey this was but his sentencing is approaching. Eddie thinks he's a bit too old to go back to prison. He could be looking to make a deal. However Eddie must be careful about his demeanor because his "friends" are alternately worried that Eddie is too scared about going back to prison or that Eddie is not concerned at all about going back to prison. Either conclusion could be harmful to Eddie's future life plans. Eddie thinks about sharing information on some small crimes here or there to uncaring federal agent Foley, who may or may not have other informers. Eddie also supplies guns to a Mafia backed group of bank robbers. Eddie gets the gats from youthful gun runner Jackie Browne. Watching over all of this is bartender and part time hitman Dillon, who is the local liaison to "the boys" (mob). 

I liked the book but I don't know that I would run around raving about how good it was. I thought it was okay. Strangely enough it reminded me of the penultimate scene in Cooley High in that mistaken assumptions can be deadly. No one can trust anyone in this book. I imagine that's what the real underworld is all about. This was a very quick read. You can finish it in a week or less quite easily. This book oozes fatalism. George Higgins also wrote Cogan's Trade which was turned into the film Killing Them Softly.






American Desperado
By Jon Roberts and Evan Wright
Speaking of the real underworld I remember watching the 2006 documentary "Cocaine Cowboys". This film centered on the Miami drug trade and its associated violence. Most of the violent players were Cubans and Colombians. But there were other people involved. One such person was a smuggler/manager for the Medellin Cartel named Jon Roberts. This older man had a very pronounced NU YAWK accent. He looked scrawny. He was going to seed physically. I figured he was a small time hustler/player. WRONG on all accounts! Jon Roberts was actually John Riccobono, the Italian-American son and nephew of some rather scary mobsters in the Gambino Crime Family. Although he was not formally inducted into the Family that proved to be no impediment to his criminal successes. In New York, Roberts spearheaded the Mafia's control of nightclubs, restaurants and concert booking. He also started dealing cocaine and reading between the lines may have done a little pandering. He certainly gained a reputation as a violent up-and-comer. One of his favorite schemes was to pretend to sell drugs to hippies or college students and rob them instead. This was in equal parts pure predation (hippies rarely fought back or went to the police) and class resentment. When Roberts got caught up in a kidnapping/extortion plot that went bad he took the judge's choice to enter the Army. He served in Vietnam with the 101st Airborne. After a short period in regular service Roberts was supposedly recruited for special programs. He does not name them but he's very obviously referring to the CIA's Operation Phoenix. I won't describe everything in detail that Roberts said he did here but utter depravity including murder, torture and mutilation pretty much covers it. The author was unable to verify many of these claims. You'll have to decide for yourself if Roberts was telling the truth.


In this book Roberts is frank about his involvement in some civilian murders, presumably those he had already confessed to and a bit less forthcoming about some others. A typical phrase describing those in the second category goes something like "I won't say what I did but so-and-so was found in the street a month later". Roberts is extremely and disturbingly frank about the evil he's done. Perhaps this is associated with being a lapsed Catholic? He's clear that when he dies he thinks he's going to hell. But Roberts also believes that no matter what anyone says, evil is stronger than good. Evil gets things done in this world. One reason Roberts may have felt this way was that as a child he saw his father commit murder. Guilt is not something that Roberts seems to feel or even understand but he does have a little disdain for people who glamorize his lifestyle (filmmakers and rappers). There are only one or two incidents he details where he ever claims to feel anything close to remorse.
After his discharge from the Army Roberts returns to New York and takes up where he left off. But when a police officer is killed (I wonder who did that?) Roberts decides that Miami might be a better location to operate. Miami is also an "open" city in that no one Mafia family can claim hegemony. Anyone can operate down there. And anyone does. Jon moves there, hooks up with a Cuban drug dealing maniac as well as a few killers who would later become CIA assets, and becomes a criminal extraordinaire. He builds his own small drug network and continues to run nightclubs and commit armed robberies. Nothing if not ambitious Roberts rises in the loose Florida criminal network to become Max Mermelstein's right hand man. Mermelstein was an in-law of ranking Medellin Cartel members. Mermelstein was responsible for overseeing smooth importation and delivery of cocaine to distributors and getting the proper monies in return. But per Roberts, Mermelstein was a coward, a weak man who never killed anyone. Mermelstein couldn't even stand up to local Cuban thugs, let alone his mad dog Colombian employers/relatives. Roberts took over 95% of Mermelstein's responsibilities, making him a boss in name only. With a few notable exceptions Mermelstein was ok with this. He got to throw parties and act like he was important. Roberts had a very low opinion of his "boss" and was happy to "manage upwards",  leaving Mermelstein out of the loop on many decisions. Roberts was the Cartel's point man for importations, distribution, and payment. Roberts could also be held personally responsible if anything went wrong. He describes one such misunderstanding.
Many CIA assets and informers weave in and out of this story. I am suspicious as to exactly when Roberts became a CIA asset. I think it happened MUCH earlier than he admits to. He details his involvement in the CIA contra arms for drugs scandals. This book pulls the curtains back on the cesspool of corruption that was (is?) Florida politics, the rivalries between and among various law enforcement and criminal organizations and the fact that General Noriega and some of Roberts' criminal associates were pedophiles. Roberts could not have worked as long as he did without the passive and active assistance of many law enforcement officials at every level. Funny, vicious and occasionally extremely disturbing this fascinating tale reads like a combination of Boogie Nights and Wiseguy. Roberts has a lot of interesting stories about some famous people. Some he identifies by name, others he does not. Some people mentioned include Jimi Hendrix, Mercury Morris, Frank Stella, Bruce Lee, the actress Toni Moon (an ex-wife), OJ Simpson, Meyer Lansky and James Caan. If you're curious about proper pistol whipping techniques, need to know what to say or not to say at a Mafia sitdown or for strictly professional reasons must practice using the minimum energy necessary to beat someone with a baseball bat, this is the book for you. As Roberts flatly tells the reader " Most of the time I've been on this earth I've had no regard for human life. That's been the key to my success".






Paris: A City Revealed
by Mike Gerrard and Donna Dailey
This is another coffee table book that I picked up from a bookstore bargain section quite some time ago and only just recently got around to reading. So it goes. Paris is a city I've always wanted to visit. However some people that I know who have been there say I might not enjoy it all that much. I don't care for cigarette smoke in the air and dog waste on my shoe in this country so why travel thousands of miles to have the same experience somewhere else. Still I love Gothic, Baroque, Art Deco and Romanesque architecture so I imagine at some point before I shuffle off this vale of tears I will take a trip over there. This book is written by a husband and wife travel writing duo who got engaged in Paris and evidently know the city quite well, judging by the book's text. I think that people need beauty in the world, whether they find that beauty in other human beings, creative pursuits, art, buildings, nature or other things. Life is too short to look at ugliness. Why hurt your eyes? This book is stuffed full of beauty. It virtually glows with it. Just flipping thru this book will cause you to have renewed appreciation for this natural glories of nature and vibrate in harmony with the universe as you are struck with awe at the things that humans can build once they put their mind to it. Ok there might be a little hyperbole in that last sentence. Nevertheless this book seizes your attention with its photography.

The book is arranged in ten different sections,(St. Germain and the Left Bank, Montmartre, Central Paris, etc) each of which discusses a different area or aspect of Paris, complete with lavish high quality photography and short concise descriptions which will answer some questions and hopefully pique your interest even more. Paris probably originated from a small fishing village settled around 250 BC. Much of the architecture that impresses me was built in the Middle Ages or Renaissance. As I've said before you can say what you like about the peoples of those times long past, what with their superstitions, lack of plumbing or personal hygiene and by our standards, barbarity, but they knew how to build things. And they built to last. If you've been to Paris then of course some of these photos and stories will be quite familiar. If you've never been then this is the next best thing. It's like taking a trip without having to deal with all the hassles. Amazon is charging $63 for a new edition but you'd be a sucker to pay more than $12.98.









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What is Progress?

May 19, 2014, 3:00 am
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"You don't stick a knife in a man's back nine inches and then pull it out six inches and say you're making progress..."

What is progress?  Progress is a good thing, right?  I mean, Webster's says that progress is "the process of improving or developing something over a period of time.  Sounds positive.  It reminds me of an old joke, "if 'con' is the opposite of 'pro', then what is the opposite of progress?' HA!  Can't beat the classics.


While I know it's supposed to be positive thing, I can't help but think that the word "progress" really means "here, take these scraps and shut the f*** up already!" Take race relations for example, sure, slavery is over, Jim Crow is dead, they even let me sit in the front of the bus -- just because I want to!   we don't need affirmative action anymore, oh, and of course, we have a black president.  Cliven Bundy, Donald Sterling, Phil Robertson and others, those are outliers!  We live in a perfect Utopian society today.

We've CLEARLY made progress in the racial arena; can we say the same for those in the same sex arena? I mean, same sex marriage is legal in 17 states.  That's progress, right?  It's better than NOT being legal.  Don't get it twisted, there's still much to overcome, but, generally speaking, you can see change.  You can see the progress.

Yes -- Yes, this is progress.  It's progress because the change in status is authentic, not superficial.  It
signifies a legitimate change in attitude and perceptions.  Not like -- oh, I don't know -- the NFL, for example.  If you keep up with the NFL, or just current events in general, then you've heard about Michael Sam.  Even if you haven't heard the name, you know the story.  Sam was the star line backer for the University of Missouri's football team, the Tigers.  The Tigers play in the Southeastern Conference, the "SEC." On May 8, Sam was the first openly gay player selected in the NFL draft.  You will hear many folks proclaim that the very fact he was drafted at all as progress.



Just to level set, the SEC is widely considered the best conference in all of college football.  You may hear arguments from loyalists in the BIG10, BIG12, or even from the PAC12 conferences.  But really, it's hard to argue against a conference that's won 9 of the 16 championships since BCS' inception.  Why is the SEC the best conference?  In large part, the answer to the question is, money.  But, it is also known for it's speed and defense.  One of the biggest reasons a team from the SEC wins the national championship is because they have a smothering defense the like unseen in other conferences.  It's usually hard for the opposing team to prepare for a team as fast and a defense as opposing as an SEC team.

That said, it's easy to understand why the best defensive player from arguably the best conferences in football is a highly valued prospect by the NFL.  The SEC awards it's best defensive player with their Defensive Player of the Year award.  How does this relate to Michael Sam?  Easy.  Sam was awarded the award in 2013.  Sam was considered the best defensive player in the best conference -- and was drafted in the 7th round of the NFL draft.  Yet, we call it progress.  Is it?

I ask because the 7th round isn't usually where a player of this caliber goes.  No, the SEC Defensive Player of the Year (DoY) and the NFL Draft's First Round are usually synonymous.  And they're certainly not home during the draft.  No, they're invited to attend in person.

Since the inception of the SEC's DoY, three recipients of the award have been drafted outside of the first round.  The very first recipient, Chad Lavalais, went in the 5th round.  Demeco Ryans went in the 2nd round in the 2005 draft.  The last, Michael Sam.  The numbers don't lie: 11 drafts, 8 first rounders, 1 second rounder, 2 others.

I can't help but wonder if we confuse progress with pacification.  Of course, I may be more of a cynic than most.  I'm certain someone would consider tossing a cracker to a starving family, or giving an ice cube to some stranded in the desert as "progress." But forgive me if I'm not so accepting.  While I'm happy for Sam and wish NOTHING but success and happiness for him, his individual accomplishment far out paces any accomplishment -- our illusion of -- made by the LGBT community.  

Click for larger image
While nearly every other individual in the exclusive SEC fraternity went round 1, Sam went number 249 out of 256.  Said another way, Michael Sam, the SEC Defensive Player of the Year, was drafted seven spots ahead of Mr. Irrelevant, the last person drafted.  This is HARDLY the place for a DoY winner.  So why?  What was SO different that caused Sam to drop from a first day pick, to damn near the very LAST person picked.  Was it is metrics or skills?  Are we to believe that his skills are so underdeveloped that he was worthy of the award, but not a higher draft pick?  Really?  I'm not buying it.  No.  Let's be honest: but for the fact that discrimination towards the gay and lesbian community isn't currently en-vogue, Sam would've never seen an NFL football team -- regardless of his talent.

The NFL is a business, and like any other business it does what it can to improve its bottom line.  Drafting Sam had shit to do with progressing human relations; it had EVERYTHINGto do with economics -- capitalism.  The backlash for not drafting Sam would've been an unwanted black eye on the NFL and possible slowed the money train.  No, it's easier to give a cracker to the starving and call it progress than to walk by without saying anything, then have to hear about it after.

At the end of the day, being gay some how -- magically -- eroded a man's skill taking him from the best defensive player to almost being "irrelevant." And yet, we've been told that his near-irrelevancy is progress because, hey, at least he wasn't tried and executed for sodomy like they used to do, right?


They say the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he never existed.  Well, if that is true, I'm beginning to think that his tricks are done with a wand called "progress." What better way to not give up anything than to convince someone they got a little something.  Damn near genius.  It's 2014 and we're STILL fighting to have each individual to be treated fairly.  Yep, that's progress for you.


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HBO Game of Thrones Recap: Mockingbird

May 19, 2014, 4:10 am
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This was another transitional episode, moving things into place. However keeping with the book it's modeled after it had its share of important and/or stunning moments. If last week saw some ugly Lannister family business publicly revealed in court this week showed some painful Tully family dynamics. As usual the show has created its own narrative, departing from the books in ways great and small although it still mostly ends up in the same place. I am getting increasingly nervous about this not only because I don't always know what will happen next, which is a good thing, but also because I'm not convinced that the changes made are always quality ones.Anyway we're reintroduced to the recast Mountain, seen practicing his butchery on prisoners. That is one HUGE man. He has muscles on his muscles. Cersei greets him fondly as he is to be the Court's Champion in the trial by combat which Tyrion has demanded.  Cersei is rarely in a better mood than when she is planning something nasty for Tyrion. She's happy.
Jaime is huddled with Tyrion in his jail cell. Jaime is upbraiding his little brother for messing up the plan but Tyrion says he couldn't stand to listen to Shae lie and reveal all that private sex talk. Love hurts. Tyrion also says no matter what it felt good to mess up Tywin's plans. Jaime is not good enough to fight anyone yet, let alone The Mountain. Tyrion asks his brother to find Bronn. There's a blink and you missed it scene at the Wall where Janos Slynt and Alliser Thorne are saddened by Jon Snow's return and even more upset to see how popular he's becoming with the brotherhood. They're like, dang, we keep trying to get this muyerfuyer killed and he keeps surviving. What's up with that? Feeling petulant Thorne pulls rank on Snow and ignores or shoots down all of his advice about the impending wildling attack. He also gives him night's watch...outside of course. Thorne is the quintessential simple minded bureaucrat found in many large organizations who insists on sticking to the rulebook no matter what new events take place. Such people can't think outside of a very narrow set of strictures and get upset when other people try to help them to do so. They lash out. Also keep in mind that Janos Slynt helped to kill Ned Stark.


Arya and The Hound are continuing their road trip. They have a brief philosophical conversation with a dying peasant before The Hound finishes him with a stab to the heart, clinically explaining to Arya how it's done. They are attacked by criminals trying to collect Tywin's bounty. One of these men bites The Hound before being dispatched. Arya recognizes the other as one of the people being taken north by The Night's Watch. She remembers him as a man who threatened to rape her. When he identifies himself as Rorge, she stabs him dead, right in the heart just as instructed. A day or so afterwards The Hound is miserable from the bite and curses the day he decided to help Arya. He admires the fact that Arya's brother Jon gave her her sword and tells of his mutilation at the hands of his brother, The Mountain. The Hound refuses to let Arya use fire to burn the infected flesh. So Arya cleans his wound with water and sews it up. In the other mismatched road trip Podrick and Brienne are at an inn being served by the expansively garrulous Hot Pie. When Brienne drops the name Sansa Stark Hot Pie claims all the Starks are traitors and he doesn't know any. But when the duo leaves he tells Brienne of his travels with Arya Stark, whom everyone thought was dead. He's once again baked a wolf shaped loaf of bread. He would like Brienne to give this to Arya. Brienne decides to look at the Eyrie for both Stark girls. Despite the good luck with Hot Pie, Podrick cautions Brienne that dropping the Stark name after Joffrey's assassination and the war might not be the smartest or safest thing to do.

Bronn, wearing fancy new clothes, goes to see Tyrion. He's made a deal with Cersei and has been too busy to see Tyrion. He's going to marry Lollys Stokeworth, a large dimwitted woman. Although Lollys is not the heir to her father's lands as Bronn explains to Tyrion, accidents can happen to older sisters. Bronn is a mercenary but for old time's sake he's willing to see if Tyrion can beat his sister's offer. Tyrion is obviously cut off from Lannister wealth but is still married to Sansa Stark. If Bronn would fight for him, Tyrion could offer some Northern lands. Bronn declines as the reward of cold northern lands isn't worth the risk of fighting The Mountain. I liked how these two men, not quite friends, but a bit more than employee/employer were constantly divided by the sunlight streaming into Tyrion's cell. Tyrion doesn't take Bronn's refusal personally.
In Meereen there is some female gaze instead of the male gaze for which so many feminists have criticized the show. Daario, who has climbed into Daenerys' suite is ordered by Daenerys to strip before they finally play the game of give a queen what she needs. The next morning a happy Daario is leaving Daenerys' chambers. He runs into Ser "I'm just a friend" Jorah and of course can't resist telling him the good news. I win, you lose. Jorah isn't happy. Jorah tells Daenerys not to trust Daario. Looking like the cat that just swallowed the canary Daenerys responds that Daario is just like Jorah. Well except for the tiny little fact that Daario does things with Daenerys that Jorah doesn't. Daenerys has sent her lover to retake Yunkai and kill every slave owner. After Jorah points out that by her logic Ned Stark would have killed Jorah, Danerys relents and changes her order. The slaveowners can change or die. Hizdahr is also going to go to Yunkai to help convince people to change their evil ways.


In Dragonstone, Selyse visits Melisandre while the latter is bathing. This makes no sense but whatever. Perhaps Selyse has some unacknowledged attraction to Melisandre? Whatever else Melisandre is she's attractive and young while Selyse is neither. Selyse is a fanatic who is unamused when Melisandre reveals that some of her magic is mere trickery for the rubes. Selyse really doesn't like her daughter Shireen and does not want to take her along on their next campaign. She wants Melisandre to convince Stannis. Melisandre disagrees. She wants to keep Shireen close. Melisandre shows Selyse something in the flames, saying she needs her to be strong. Hmm. Oberyn approaches Tyrion and lets him know that Cersei approached him. Tyrion says that his sister is excellent at "making honest feelings do dishonest work" and would be happy to see him dead. Oberyn agrees and reveals he was not taken in by Cersei. Oberyn talks of seeing Tyrion as a baby and being both somewhat disappointed that Tyrion wasn't a monster and taken aback that Cersei hated her brother so. But that's the past. The important thing here is that Oberyn learned at a very early age not to believe what Lannisters say. Oberyn says he wants justice. He will be Tyrion's champion. There are only a handful of men who would choose to fight The Mountain. Oberyn is one of them. I liked how this was shot. Oberyn was very serious. We see him from Tyrion's point of view. He fills the screen.
It's snowing at the Eyrie. In the courtyard Sansa has built a replica of Winterfell. Her idiot cousin Robin comes to see what she's doing. As he is only interested in killing people he is upset to find out that Winterfell has no Moon Door to throw people from and that Sansa didn't attend executions. He has a temper tantrum and destroys her work. Sansa slaps him. It's actually a pretty good belt right across the kisser. Pow! Right to the moon! Robin runs off. Lord Creep, Littlefinger, reveals he was watching the whole thing. He says that Robin needed that and more. When Sansa asks him why did he kill Joffrey, Littlefinger talks of how much he loved Catelyn and asks Sansa what do we do to those who hurt us. He also plays with Sansa's hair and kisses her. He tells Sansa that she's more beautiful than her mother and should have been his daughter. Lysa sees/hears this from the balcony. Lysa summons Sansa to the throne room. No one else is there. The Moon Door is open. Now if you already know that a relative is a little bit off and you see them cleaning a gun, sharpening a knife or I don't know, standing next to a door that opens to an 800 foot drop, would you get closer to them? Well bless her heart Sansa does. 
The crazy we saw in old aunt Lizzy last episode comes back twice as strong. After she talks about how bodies explode on impact from the fall she grabs her niece and calls her a whore. She boasts that everyone who tried to come between her and Littlefinger is dead. She has every intention of throwing Sansa through the Moon Door when Littlefinger appears. He commands her to let Sansa go. He says he will send Sansa away. Lysa says that she's lied and killed for Littlefinger. Lysa lets Sansa go. She and Littlefinger embrace. Littlefinger calls Lysa a silly woman and tells her he's only ever loved one woman.

Her sister.

He pushes Lysa thru the Moon Door.

What I liked
  • Nice to see Melisandre again if you know what I mean. Heh heh. Seriously though she is just as crazy as Selyse. I think she does mean harm to Shireen based on the whole "king's blood" deal.
  • Lysa's pains and resentments were key to Littlefinger's plans and essential to the story. Nobody except Littlefinger knew just how f****** up she really was and how much she hated her family. You can argue that she needed to put on her big girl drawers and woman up but people really do hold on to irrational family resentments for years. Not everyone helps to start a war and murders family members but that aside Lysa was a realistic character. Selfish, crazy and even evil but quite realistic. Both Lysa and Littlefinger fell in love with someone who didn't love them. They each wanted revenge. The situation reminds me of the Harold Lauder character in Stephen King's The Stand.
  • The goodbye between Bronn and Tyrion. They had some fun but business is business. In his relationship with Bronn, unlike his interactions with Shae, Tyrion was never under the illusion that love was involved.
  • If Littlefinger was watching the courtyard, surely he must have known Lysa would be as well. There are some interesting implications there.
  • Robin has every sign of being another Joffrey. I think Sansa saw this or feels it. I think the slap was not just for the destruction of her snow castle but also in response to everything she's been through. It could herald a more active Sansa Stark. 
  • Daenerys learning that life may not be as black and white as she thinks. Some of her responses to challenges are coming from her life of being the underdog and the subject of numerous plots and assassination attempts. Now that she's in charge she has a lot of psychological damage to process. And let's not forget her parents were siblings. The crazy could be in her.

What I didn't like
  • Jorah still laying in the cut. If there was ever a time to open your heart and put it all out there Jorah, you may have just missed it. Daenerys looked a little too happy.
  • I thought we'd get a quick info dump on how Shae came back. Was her ship boarded or had Bronn already been bought off by Tywin and Cersei.
  • No Stannis this week. 
*This post is written for discussion of this episode and previous episodes.  If you have book based knowledge of future events please be kind enough not to discuss that here.  NO SPOILERS. NO BOOK DERIVED HINTS ABOUT FUTURE EVENTS. Most of my blog partners have not read the books and would take spoilers most unkindly. Heads, spikes, well you get the idea....
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Are You An "Unpatriotic Racist?" - Pat Sajak Might Think So

May 21, 2014, 7:08 am
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I love how social media has really shed a light on humans and shown us who we really are. It's good and bad. I personally believe that we know way too much about one another. For the regular folks like myself and my colleagues here at The Urban Politico, the exposure has a different effect versus a celebrity. If I get on Twitter and call people racists, the outcome is probably going to be very different versus our favorite singer getting on Twitter and calling people racists. We've seen sooooooo many cases where social media has taken out a celebrity. Once you post something you can't take it back. I still don't understand why folks don't understand that.  Especially an old timer like Pat Sajak.





Honestly, I could care less about what Pat Sajak thinks or says. He's not famous enough to have any impact. Quite some time ago I decided to ignore climate change deniers. There is nothing they can do to convince me otherwise and apparently not even the actual climate nor science can convince them. Pat Sajak the guy we see on television for thirty minutes a few times a week -- i'm not sweating it. The people who scare me are the 2166 folks who retweeted and the 1454 who made this tweet a favorite. 

But hey, what do I know!

1) What are your thoughts on climate change and climate change deniers?
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Dean Baquet Replaces Jill Abramson At New York Times

May 23, 2014, 10:51 am
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You may have heard that the New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. recently fired Executive Editor Jill Abramson and replaced her with Managing Editor Dean Baquet. Baquet becomes the first Black person to serve as Executive Editor. Abramson's dismissal was met with wails and shrieks from many prominent women in the media who were immediately either convinced or worried that Abramson's termination was based in sexism. I waited to write on this because (1) I wanted to see if any other information about this termination arose (it did), (2) I was very busy at my own job and lacked the time to write and (3) I wasn't convinced that it was something about which I had enough interest to write. But I got a little amused and even annoyed by some of the hysterical hyperventilating happening around this incident. So now that the crisis has hopefully dissipated in my own workplace and my job is safe, I have a little time to share some thoughts about what I now think of as a much hyped non-event.

When your former co-workers give a standing ovation to the person who replaced you it could indicate that you weren't super well liked. I've had both men and women bosses. If you're younger than 60 and have worked any serious amount of time in corporate America you probably have also had bosses of both genders. I wouldn't dare speak for you but I've had women bosses that I admired, respected, and emulated and those that I despised and hated with the white hot intensity of one thousand supernova. And the same is true of male bosses to whom I've reported. Some were decent. Some were middling. Some were superstars. Some were incompetent. Some were downright malevolent and/or bigoted.

In a former workplace I once worked with a black contractor who was a few years older than me. Our company was flexible on start time, especially for direct hires, but expected everyone to put at least 8-9 hrs each day. Most us started between 6 AM and 8 AM. 8:30~9 AM start times were considered late and would cause some raised eyebrows or snide comments. On a good day this fellow would not arrive until 9:30 AM. 10 AM wasn't uncommon. He never stayed late. His tardiness caused problems with management and resentment with peers. One morning he wasn't around when a business group manager needed him for something important. And when he did arrive he ignored her requests. Well that was a mistake. She took a personal interest in documenting his late arrivals and bad mouthing him to her fellow managers and supervisors. Shortly afterwards the man was fired. There is a stereotype of black men being incompetent or tardy. I've dealt with it. But if you really are consistently tardy and get fired you or your friends can't whine about stereotypes. That stuff is on you. Similarly if (and I say if because nobody outside of a few people at the NYT really knows what happened) Abramson really was an abrasive and/or ineffective leader then terminating her was just and fair. If not then I expect a lawsuit will result and we'll be able to read about it in the papers. It's important to remember though that men get fired for among other reasons, being abrasive, including one of Abramson's predecessors at the NYT. Just because someone gets fired for what some people might deem stereotypical reasons, doesn't automatically mean that the firing was unjustified. There actually are a few harsh unpleasant women in this world. According to the NYT, contrary to what some of Abramson's media partisans claimed about her unequal pay, Abramson's compensation was comparable to or exceeded that of her male predecessor.
On Saturday, Mr. Sulzberger said, as he did in an earlier public statement, that Ms. Abramson’s pay package in her last year in the job was 10 percent higher than Mr. Keller’s. “Equal pay for women is an important issue in our country — one that The New York Times often covers,” Mr. Sulzberger wrote. “But it doesn’t help to advance the goal of pay equality to cite the case of a female executive whose compensation was not in fact unequal.”
Until Saturday, Mr. Sulzberger had said only that her removal was due to “an issue with management in the newsroom.” His new statement cited a pattern of behavior that included “arbitrary decision-making, a failure to consult and bring colleagues with her, inadequate communication and the public mistreatment of colleagues.” Mr. Sulzberger said that he had wanted Ms. Abramson to succeed and had discussed these problems with her. But he ultimately concluded that “she had lost the support of her masthead colleagues and could not win it back.” The decision to replace her, he said, was “for reasons having nothing to do with pay or gender.”
LINK
Of course what else will a boss say about someone whom he just fired, right? So I wouldn't necessarily take everything Sulzberger says as gospel. Still it is a reminder that there are usually at least two sides to each story. It's not as cut and dry that male bosses get away with acting unpleasantly and female ones don't. If you are a boss at any level your job includes overseeing and evaluating people's work. You must let them know where they're doing great work, where they could improve and occasionally even unilaterally give them opportunities to succeed elsewhere. But it's also just as important if not more so to get people who want to work for you and with you. Because sometimes if your perceived management style failings are greater than the benefit the company obtains from keeping you on, your actions and attitude could be helping you to dig your own grave, figuratively speaking of course.

I am just dismayed at the rush of judgment by so many people to assume that Abramson's firing was a case of sexism. From what I can tell Abramson tried to dilute Baquet's power and role by bringing in another woman to take away some of his workplace responsibilities. Not working at the NYT I couldn't say if this was justified or not. But I do know, particularly in hyper competitive workplaces, taking work from someone is often seen and meant as a precursor to a less than excellent performance review or worse as cover for pushing them out. There's a HUGE difference between you going to your boss and requesting that s/he hire someone because you're doing the work of five people and your boss deciding on his/her own that the work you're doing isn't quite up to par and you need help. Given that Baquet was a previous finalist for Abramson's job he apparently saw her move as a preemptive strike and responded accordingly. Sulzberger had other issues with Abramson and that was that. Now it's true that Abramson has every right to hire as she sees fit. But let's reverse the genders/management roles. Say Baquet is Executive Editor. If he had tried to hire another Black man to help Abramson do her job the same people complaining about Abramson's firing would be pointing to Baquet's aborted hiring attempt as proof of sexism and the old boy's network. They would be cheering Baquet's firing as a blow against sexism and for transparency.

Heads I win. Tails you lose.

There is racism, sexism and every other ism in the world. That's obvious.
But before we lead a lynch mob on behalf of Abramson, who apparently was not underpaid, let's find out what's going on first. It sounds to me like she made a power play and lost. It happens. It happens to men all the time. Now that more women are in high paid, high stress positions, it will happen to them as well. That's my take anyway, with the evidence I see.

What are your thoughts?
Do you think that abrasive women are still treated differently than abrasive men?
If you work for other people what qualities do you look for in a boss?
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Movie Reviews: About Last Night, Rage, Devil's Due

May 24, 2014, 4:09 am
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About Last Night
directed by Steve Pink
This is a remake of a 1986 film of the same name that had a predominantly white cast. This film has a predominantly black cast. Each film was based on a David Mamet play. There was a recent interesting discussion at The Atlantic about the need to make more non-white and/or non-male people the center of story lines instead of just being at best the sassy best friend. Judging by some of the comments by self-identified whites you would have thought that the writer was suggesting harvesting women's ovaries to sell for cheap in Eastern Europe. It was sort of depressing but also quite predictable how many people not only accepted but defended the idea that they wanted no black characters in their books or movies, not a one. They thought that cinematic and literary monochromatic depictions were not only normal and realistic but preferred. Similarly although this remake was directed and written by white people, the writer talks of the ugly, skeptical, and horribly racist reactions she received from some white people in so-called liberal Hollywood when it became known that her film would have a predominantly black cast. "I heard some very interesting reactions to the casting, specifically from white people who work in the movie industry. While I was doing the rewrite, I got dozens of really mean jokes, most of which I don’t feel comfortable putting into writing here because they were sometimes racist and always hurtful. The most clever one (still lame) was: "How’s your David Blamet script going?" It was like my script was suddenly not as good or less than or just plain not cool because of the casting. Whatever. Those people suck."
I would say that the writer, Leslye Headland (who also wrote the Bachelorette film), and director Steven Pink (who wrote High Fidelity and directed Hot Tub Time Machine) did a good job at creating a funny romantic comedy. It's only occasionally harsh but is always very honest. Hopefully much like Bill O'Reilly's surprise when he visited a Harlem restaurant and learned that black people weren't actually cursing each other out or shooting each other, perhaps some white people who might otherwise dismiss this as a "black" film will give it a shot. To dip into cliche for a moment, the story and themes are universal. They aren't made any less so because the lead characters are black. Lastly if I recall correctly this film had no racial caricatures. Specifically there were no morbidly obese or masculine black women, no thugs and no drugs, and no black best friend of either gender who only exists to help the white character along his or her journey to love and happiness with someone else. In other words this film was a breath of fresh air. When I was very young it was not uncommon for my relatives to call people on the phone to let them know "Black people were on TV!". It didn't matter what the black people were doing, just being on TV was sufficient. That had started to dissipate by the time I was in second grade as black politicians and other movers and shakers became more common. Still I want to give a virtual shout of "Black people in a movie!" in a nod to those long gone days.


Ok. Enough with the social commentary already. What's this film about? Well as mentioned it is an acerbic romantic comedy which has four lead roles. There's Danny (Michael Ealy) and Bernie (Kevin Hart), good friends who work as salesmen/distributors in the Los Angeles restaurant supply business. Bernie is a confirmed player (and he gets the lion's share of the film's funny lines) who doesn't really believe in love. He thinks that his hopelessly romantic friend Danny needs to stop moping around about being dumped by the love of his life Alison (Paula Patton-man that is one sexy lady) and get back in the game. To this end he has invited Danny along on his date with Joan (Regina Hall), a sexy and occasionally over the top dentist. Joan has asked her roommate, Debbie (Joy Bryant), a telecom exec, to tag along. In a recurring theme throughout the film Bernie and Joan are more down to the earth than their friends and often (occasionally hysterically wrongly) think that they know what's best for Danny and Debbie. Unsurprisingly Bernie and Joan hook up. Somewhat more surprisingly so do Danny and Debbie, after Debbie is impressed with how Danny is not threatened by her prior relationship with Terrell Owens (playing himself). It's been a while for both Danny and Debbie. Debbie is looking for a gentleman and Danny seems to be just such a man. 
Now it wouldn't be a romantic comedy if there weren't some conflict. This film delivers on that front. It makes some very funny and true to life observations about the challenges couples face in meeting each other's friends and family, moving in together, accepting or rejecting each other's quirks and flaws, dealing with the reality that you probably weren't your lover's one and only, being honest about the emotional vulnerability that saying "I love you" brings, and learning how to handle conflict with your significant other. That last could mean that you shut up and smile or become willing to respectfully but passionately fight on an issue that's important to you. In a modest subplot Danny doesn't like his job very much, especially since it brings him in conflict with his deceased father's best friend Casey (Christopher McDonald) a tavern owner who is chronically unable to pay his debts or update with the times. But Danny is concerned that quitting his job will lose him Debbie's respect since as he ruefully tells Bernie "There's a good chance she makes more than I do". In what seems like a tip of the hat to (500) Days of Summer, this film occasionally uses animated sketches that morph into real life sets. There is some blink and you'll miss it toplessness from Joy Bryant and extended (though not full frontal) nude scene from Michael Ealy. Again although EVERYONE did a great job in this flick special note must go to Kevin Hart. His character's manic behavior and utter pragmatism really drove the humor.
TRAILER
Interview with Headland





Rage
directed by Paco Cabezas
Rage stars Nicolas Cage. There are some people who will automatically not watch the film just because of that fact. A lot of times Cage seems to act as if he is zoned out on Quaaludes. And in the instances where that's not the case he's often incredibly frantic, looking or sounding as if he's pumped up on speed. Well that's the impression I often get anyway. I can't recall too many recent movies where he wasn't at one polarity or the other. Well that's also the case with this film but in a bit of a surprise it actually fits the character and his situation. The issue with this film was that there really wasn't a strong second actor or actress role for Cage to well..rage against. Rachel Nichols has a toned down/desexed role as Cage's wife. Danny Glover has a small part as a cop who may or may not be trying to help Cage. But the bad guys lack a little panache, a little style a little badness. Paul Maguire (Nicolas Cage) is a businessman. He appears to be a developer and real estate investor. He has a pretty younger wife Vanessa (Nichols) and a cute teen daughter Caitlin (Aubrey Peeples). Paul also has a large home, nice clothes and everything else that one would expect a middle aged man of means and substance to have in this great country of ours. His daughter is the apple of his eye. He dotes on her. Her mother died years ago. Like many fathers in that situation, Paul holds on fiercely to his little girl because she's the only reminder of his deceased wife. She's growing up quickly though. The boys are starting to come around. Although Paul is accepting of this fact as all men must become some day I suppose, he is still protective. 


When Paul and Vanessa go out for a political/business dinner, Paul somewhat reluctantly allows Caitlin to stay home and study with two of her high school classmates. Ahem. Both classmates happen to be boys which certainly is not the sort of thing my parents would have tolerated but this is 2014, yes? Times have changed. Before he leaves Paul gives one of the boys a friendly fatherly warning. But he also tells him that Caitlyn is fond of him and the next move is up to him. But in his absence things go wrong. There is a home invasion. As Detective St. John (Danny Glover) informs Paul and Vanessa, someone has kidnapped Caitlyn. The two boys were beaten up but not killed. There's no ransom note. No one has contacted Paul. Time is running out. Distraught, Paul tries to console his wife and think about where his daughter could be. However, Paul is not a man without resources. You see Paul has been law abiding for the past fifteen years or so. But before that he was one of the Irish Mob's most feared and deadly enforcers. Paul went straight upon Caitlin's mother's death, wanting to be around to raise Caitlin. But he'll be dammed if anyone kidnaps his daughter and gets away with it. He and his two closest old crew members, Danny (Michael McGrady) and Kane (Max Ryan), roam the city asking questions. And sometimes they don't ask so nice. Both Detective St. John and Paul's old boss Francis (Peter Stomare) try to get him to back off but he doesn't listen. Would you? Paul thinks he's found a link to his past that explains what happened.

At this point you might be thinking of Taken or Ransom or Four Brothers. Yeah. This movies is like a low rent version of those films. It has a nice little twist but it takes a tad too long to play out. There are times when you may pump your fist when some baddie gets his but the film's primary emotion is sadness. There are also a few too many flashbacks. Definitely not in the top tier of classic woman-in-peril/vigilante movies, Rage is okay but not something that will stay with you. I just wish Cage had been given more to work with here. McGrady gives a nice performance as the trio musclehead. He's been waiting for a chance to hurt someone. It's what he does. Be glad if he's on your side. Be worried if he's not. There is obviously the normal amount of violence and female toplessness/skimpy clothing, though this latter unfortunately does not include Nichols. This has a made for TV look in some aspects.
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Devil's Due
directed by Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin
This is the movie that the evil devil baby skit in NYC was used to promote.
I don't think I would call this exactly a remake of Rosemary's Baby but it is something that is very very close.  It's perhaps a homage? We know very soon that something is going wrong but the couple doesn't. The only time the film tries to give an explanation about what might be happening was when the requisite Catholic priest babbles on about old church doctrines and heretics. The movie never goes anywhere with that. The characters do not do not make frantic calls to the Vatican or spend a night ensconced in the library, reading a Bible in Aramaic and discovering some secret conspiracy hidden in the text. Those things are virtually required in this genre. To not have them is like having a revenge movie where the lead actor doesn't lose someone close. I thought the lead actor lacked a little charisma but that might just have been the writing. I found him a tad passive. So if you've seen Rosemary's Baby and liked that film I would probably advise you to skip this movie. It would just irritate you. On the other hand if you haven't seen Rosemary's Baby and are intrigued by the miracle of pregnancy and/or frightened/irritated/fascinated by all the physical and emotional changes a mother's body undergoes this might be okay for you. Unfortunately the film uses the found footage trope, which not only doesn't work for this story but is just getting a little played out at this point in time.


Zach McCall (Zach Gilford) and Samantha (Allison Miller) have just gotten married. For their honeymoon they have decided to vacation in Santo Domingo. After a night of parties with other expatriates and a weird encounter with a creepy fortune teller who is disturbed by Samantha they decide to return to their hotel. But they're lost. Amazingly enough they run into a friendly if somewhat insistent cabbie who agrees to take them back to the hotel free of charge because of their newlywed status. But first he says he must take them to a special party which he knows that they will love. Zach fails his first test as husband by not putting his foot down and getting his wife safely home. The couple goes to this new party which becomes progressively weirder. Eventually they wake up in their hotel room with little to no memory of the party or how they got home. Chalking it up to the alcohol they return home to the states where soon afterwards, much to her chagrin, Samantha discovers that she's pregnant. Although, like most newlyweds they couldn't keep their hands off each other, Samantha used birth control religiously. She is confused and not super excited to learn she's going to be a mother.  Motherhood was not something she thought she was ready for. Zach is just prideful that one of his boys slipped past the goalie. He's very happy to be an expectant father.
It's no spoiler to reveal that the pregnancy is not an easy one for the couple. I'm not just talking about the normal to semi-normal things like routine nausea, sudden anger/tears, weight gain and calcium loss. Strange events start to happen. Zach sees people watching the house. The vegetarian Samantha starts craving raw meat. The couple's initial friendly female obstetrician is suddenly replaced by a more clinically detached male doctor, who ignores Samantha's worries. And that doctor's callousness is really symbolic of the film's shortcomings in my view. We never really get a chance to see Zach and Samantha as people so we don't really care about them as such. There are the usual body horror tropes of watching Samantha's stomach suddenly bulge and expand as she sleeps, letting us know that her "child" is neither Zach's nor is it human. But other than learning that Samantha is sweet and Zach is earnest, we know nothing about this couple. The flashbacks to happier times, which are intended to elicit empathy, generally don't. It's amazing that Rob Zombie could use the exact same technique in The Devil's Rejects and make them work for much worse characters. Devil's Due had some frights but nothing you haven't seen before if you watch a lot of horror movies. My take away from this film was to avoid attending basement parties in the Dominican Republic.
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Elliot Rodger: UCSB Isla Vista Murderer

May 27, 2014, 4:01 am
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The predictable reactions about the recent murders in Isla Vista were that people immediately used the tragedy to argue for previously accepted conclusions. So if you already felt that whiteness, white masculinity or even masculinity itself are all highly problematic or needed to be interrogated and altered you felt that your premise was vindicated by these murders, never mind that Rodger was half white. He clearly identified with white privilege and saw himself as better than other non-whites. If you thought that interracial marriages and immigration are bad ideas then you looked at the British born half-Asian Rodger and argued those characteristics were somehow salient to his actions. If you were convinced that the path to better living is found via psychiatry and aggressive state law enforcement intervention then you were outraged that therapists or police didn't do something earlier, as surely you would have done were you in their position. If you think that pick up artists or game theorists are synonymous with misogyny, hatred and terrorism then you probably wanted to know why the NSA, FBI or other agency weren't keeping tabs on Rodger's online presence and targeting him with drone strikes. If his last name hinted at Muslim heritage maybe agencies would have been watching him. If you think that youthful "bullying" will often bear dark poisonous fruits in later years then you were outraged that teachers or other authority figures didn't pick up on and correct Rodger's persecution feelings earlier. There were even some people who thought that the delicate featured Rodger was dealing with gay panic. And of course if you think that the NRA is the source of all evil then you were upset that Rodger was able to legally purchase guns in the first place.
And so on.


You can find all of these perceptions and more across the net if you deign to search.
Some might even have some validity. But I think that most of them are the worst examples of Monday morning quarterbacking. For those who have lost loved ones or have had their lives altered by being wounded by this madman, I would not contradict anything they might say in their grief. But  the rest of us must step back, analyze what happened and see if we can prevent such things. I don't think we can. I think it's only too human for everyone to look at this incident and immediately argue that they are justified in whatever preexisting conclusion they already had. It is understandable of course but it would make for bad public policy. First off let's look at the guns. Rodger bought the guns legally roughly a year before he went on his killing spree. He passed all the background checks. The guns were not "assault rifles". They had limited capacity magazines. In short, there was nothing under current law, which in California is tilted towards more restrictive purchasing standards, which would have prevented Rodger from buying a gun. Nothing. Absent outlawing guns in private hands, I'm not sure what more gun control advocates would like to see done. Keep in mind that Rodger stabbed three men to death and ran over at least one more with his BMW. For those who fixate on the guns I would just like to know what law, what standard would they seek to impose that would be able to distinguish between a monster like Rodger and the thousands of other people who purchase guns each year? 


Next look at the opportunities for intervention. If someone is thought to be an imminent danger to himself or others, there is an ability to place that person under a 72 hour hold. But the key word there is imminent. No one except the therapists and police involved know how Rodger presented himself but evidently they did not see the threat. It is easy after the fact, as some CNN windbags did, to pompously talk about missed signs. But the reality no one knows what any human is capable of, given the right stimuli. Our justice system is designed to convict people for what they have done after a trial by jury. It is not, with very few exceptions, designed to imprison or convict people for what they might do, on the say so of family members, police or mental health experts. If you want to open the floodgates and start locking people up for things they haven't done, well you will need to radically change our concept of law. Most people with mental health problems are not violent. I don't want people to be arrested for what they might do or even for their hateful ideologies. Rodger could accurately be described as a loser, a racist, a misogynist, a misanthrope.  He attempted to find other people who shared his views. Despite his outwardly directed hatred the person he most despised appears to have been himself. His sense of race and class based entitlement was apparently very strong. There was a yawning gulf between who Rodger was and who he thought he should be. Unable to stand it any more he wanted to make everyone else pay. I can't think of any consistent method to identify and intervene with people like this. 

Maybe if Rodger had improved his social skills with (white) women he would have reduced his frustrations and found happiness. Or perhaps not. Maybe eventually he would have snapped and killed any girlfriend or other sexual partner he had. We don't know and will never know. Anyone who tells you they have the answer to stop horrific events like this is mistaken. I understand and sympathize with the urge to find the reason why this happened and get the government to fix it. But sometimes there simply aren't answers.

Rodger Manifesto
My father drove up to Santa Barbara to meet me a few days later. When we sat down at our table, I saw a young couple sitting a few tables down the row. The sight of them enraged me to no end, especially because it was a dark-skinned Mexican guy dating a hot blonde white girl. I regarded it as a great insult to my dignity. How could an inferior Mexican guy be able to date a white blonde girl, while I was still suffering as a lonely virgin? I was ashamed to be in such an inferior position in front my father. When I saw the two of them kissing, I could barely contain my rage. I stood up in anger, and I was about to walk up to them and pour my glass of soda all over their heads. 
My two housemates were nice, but they kept inviting over this friend of theirs named Chance. He was black boy who came over all the time, and I hated his cocksure attitude. Inevitably, a vile incident occurred between me and him. I was eating a meal in the kitchen when he came over and started bragging to my housemates about his success with girls. I couldn’t stand it, so I proceeded to ask them all if they were virgins. They all looked at me weirdly and said that they had lost their virginity long ago. I felt so inferior, as it reminded me of how much I have missed out in life. And then this black boy named Chance said that he lost his virginity when he was only thirteen! In addition, he said that the girl he lost his virginity to was a blonde white girl! I was so enraged that I almost splashed him with my orange juice. I indignantly told him that I did not believe him, and then I went to my room to cry. I cried and cried and cried, and then I called my mother and cried to her on the phone. How could an inferior, ugly black boy be able to get a white girl and not me? I am beautiful, and I am half white myself. I am descended from British aristocracy. He is descended from slaves.
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RIP: Legendary Author Maya Angelou

May 28, 2014, 6:46 am
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From CNN:

(CNN) -- Maya Angelou, a renowned poet, novelist and actress whose work defied description under a simple label, has died, her publicist, Helen Brann, said Thursday.

She died at her home in Winston-Salem, N.C., Brann said.

A professor, singer and dancer, among other things, Angelou's work spans different professions. She spent her early years studying dance and drama in San Francisco, California.

After dropping out at age 14, she become the city's first African-American female cable car conductor.
Angelou later returned to high school to finish her diploma and gave birth to her son a few weeks after graduation. While the 17-year-old single mother waited tables to support her son, she acquired a passion for music and dance. She toured Europe in the mid-1950s with "Porgy and Bess," an opera production. In 1957, she recorded her first album, "Calypso Lady."

In 1958, Angelou become a part of the Harlem Writers Guild in New York and also played a queen in "The Blacks," an off-Broadway production by French dramatist Jean Genet.

Affectionately referred to as Dr. Angelou, the professor never went to college. She has more than 30 honorary degrees and taught American studies for years at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

"I created myself," she has said. "I have taught myself so much."

Angelou was born on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri. She grew up between St. Louis and the then-racially-segregated Stamps, Arkansas.

The famous poet got into writing after a childhood tragedy that stunned her into silence for almost a decade. When she was 7, her mother's boyfriend raped her. He was later beaten to death by a mob after she testified against him.

"My 7-and-a-half-year-old logic deduced that my voice had killed him, so I stopped speaking for almost six years," she said.

From the silence, a louder voice was born.

Her list of friends is as impressive as her illustrious career. Talk show queen Oprah Winfrey referred to her as "sister friend." She counted Martin Luther King Jr., with whom she worked during the Civil Rights movement, among her friends. King was assassinated on her birthday.

Angelou spoke at least six languages, and worked as a newspaper editor in Egypt and Ghana. During that time, she wrote "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," launching the first in a series of autobiographical books
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"I want to write so well that a person is 30 or 40 pages in a book of mine ... before she realizes she's reading," she said.

Angelou was also one of the first black women film directors. Her work on Broadway has been nominated for Tony Awards.

Before making it big, the 6-foot-tall wordsmith also worked as a cook and sang with a traveling road show. "Look where we've all come from ... coming out of darkness, moving toward the light," she has said. "It is a long journey, but a sweet one, bittersweet."

Rest in Peace Mother Maya.  You will be missed by The Urban Politico readers and staff. 
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VA Secretary Eric Shinseki Resigns

May 30, 2014, 9:18 am
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This was hardly unexpected. When your boss refuses to give you words of support and your peers are distancing themselves from you it's time to do the right thing and fall on your sword like a good little soldier. I really think that the problems with the VA are both about the people at the top and the entire bureaucratic VA culture. I don't know if the next person to be approved as secretary will make any difference but as one lady manager told me quite some time ago "Your time for excuses and explanations ended when you took the job". If something happens on your watch you are responsible. Period. Nobody wants to hear about what the last Administration did or do not do, especially six years after you took over responsibility and actually ran on making changes. Once again, though this continues a pattern of the President and his direct reports seemingly being out of the loop when major bad mojo is going down. I really do think that this is at least in part a byproduct of the fact that before his election the President had never managed large organizations, either in business or in government bureaucracy. It is also in my opinion a byproduct of the fact that in a bipartisan sense, people love giving lip service to supporting the troops but are often nowhere to be found when the troops need help. Anyway, Shinseki gave us his ritual pound of flesh. It wasn't all his fault but apparently he didn't improve things either. I have no pleasure in seeing him resign nor am I saddened. Let's see if actual changes are made to how the VA delivers health care. I think that a voucher system allowing vets to get private coverage might be the way to go. There's no reason that anyone who laid it on the line for this country, whether you agreed with the policy or not, should have to deal with a p**s poor health care system. Heck, none of us should have to deal with such a system.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki resigned Friday in a personal meeting with President Barack Obama, shortly after publicly apologizing for deep problems plaguing the agency's health care system that Obama called "totally unacceptable."


Obama said Shinseki had served with honor, but the secretary told him the agency needs new leadership and he doesn't want to be a distraction. "I agree. We don't have time for distractions. We need to fix the problem," Obama said.Obama said he accepted the retired four-star general's resignation "with considerable regret" during an Oval Office meeting. Shinseki had been facing mounting calls to step down from lawmakers in both parties since a scathing internal report out Wednesday found broad and deep-seated problems in the sprawling health care system, which provides medical care to about 6.5 million veterans annually.
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Book Reviews: I, Sniper, Breakfast of Champions

May 31, 2014, 2:30 am
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I, Sniper
by Stephen Hunter
You know the drill. Bob Lee Swagger, an aging Vietnam Vet, top sniper, and downright genius in all things involving guns, detective work, violence, mechanics, or weapons is off somewhere minding his own business when some immoral person someplace does something bad. Only Bob Lee can put things right. And by God he means to do just that. I've mentioned before that I like the series although the author is quite different from me politically. If the story is good I usually don't care about politics. I could never have read anything by Robert E. Howard or H.P. Lovecraft if I required all of my reading material to be created by like minded people. There are no writers with whom I agree on everything. However there are limits to my tolerance. This book is not Hunter's best. I, Sniper is the first Bob Lee Swagger novel I've read where it felt to me as if the author was deliberately and too obviously marketing his story towards one side of the political spectrum. Hunter shamelessly panders here. The hero only watches Fox News. Hunter takes shots every other page at the supposed effete nancy boy anti-gun New York Times/East Coast Media journalists and intelligentsia. Hunter has stated that some of this bile is released frustration at being what he thought of as a token conservative at his previous Washington Post gig as well as anger that the NYT did not review his older books. Hunter chides others about their unexamined assumptions but seems blissfully unaware of his own. Previously, Hunter used this series (via Swagger) to give concise if gruff explanations of gun and military culture to those who were unfamiliar with them. I, Sniper often radiates a sneering exclusionary tone towards people who aren't fervent military or law enforcement wannabes supporters or knowledgeable of various firearms esoterica. We don't have Hans and Franz mocking "girlie men" but the book comes close. Literary incarnations of Jane Fonda, Abbie Hoffman, Bill Ayers and Bernadotte Dohm are murdered. A famous gadfly journalist (O.Z Harris) is posthumously revealed as a Soviet agent.

There's also some whining about the fact that while Bob Lee Swagger and friends were bleeding and dying in Vietnam, the people mentioned above weren't.  Hunter even uses "European" as an insult and marker of difference when the hero investigates a crime victim's home and notices that it doesn't look "American" because among other things there's no flag. Right. Because that makes perfect sense. As a reader who doesn't share Hunter's smoldering antipathy towards anyone to the left of Chris Kyle, I found myself wishing Hunter would just go write an essay someplace and tone down the "I'm a real American and you're not" political rants in what until now had been a decent series.

Anyhow, Joan Flanders, famous actress, scion of a famous acting family, anti-war icon, exercise guru, millionaire and ex-wife of southern billionaire businessman T.T. Constable is murdered by a sniper, along with three other aging left-wing icons of varying fame and fortune. Two of the murdered people lived in Hyde Park, Chicago and were friends with and mentors to a very highly placed politician and avatar of hope and change (hint, hint, hint). Swagger friend, FBI Assistant Director Nick Memphis, is tagged to lead the investigation. The evidence implicates Vietnam Veteran Carl Hitchcock (an avatar of real life Marine sniper Carlos Hathcock). Hitchcock was the number one sniper in Vietnam. Supposedly, he was upset that new evidence proved he was only the number two sniper. So he went on a killing spree to regain his first place status. Things look pretty cut and dry, especially when Hitchcock is found dead from presumable suicide. The media loves the narrative of a "right-wing vet baby killer" murdering the very people who tried to stop the Vietnam War. 


The powers that be want the investigation wrapped up. But Nick Memphis is thorough. He calls in Swagger (the number three sniper in the Vietnam War) to review the case. If there's one thing Swagger's good at besides shooting it's putting the facts together and letting people know what he thinks. Swagger finds some inconsistencies. And we go down the rabbit hole of shadowy conspiracy, Washington politics, revenge and some damn fine shooting. Just as John Henry the steel driving man had to measure his strength against a newfangled steam engine so will Swagger have to face off against sniper technology that is far beyond his natural skill and instinct. But he's Bob Lee Swagger. You don't get to have a name like that unless you wake up in the morning drinking TNT and smoking dynamite. Mess with Swagger and he WILL punch you in your testicles/ovaries before ripping them off and beating you over the head with them for being stupid enough to **** with him in the first place. I liked the character a lot more than the story. The reader may learn a little more about the science of shooting and how newsrooms work. I thought the newsroom workplace descriptions were interesting. There was almost too much technical information about guns and shooting included. Hunter uses a lot of misdirection and trickery. There are also some uncomfortable questions raised about utilitarianism. Swagger is a lot of things but utilitarian he's not though the bad guys (mirror images of Swagger) try to convince him otherwise. There's a few obvious plotholes. The title is obviously a nod to Mickey Spillane's I, The Jury. Bottom line is that I was equally taken aback by Hunter's fierce injection of politics and his suggestion that his hero looks like Buddy Ebsen. For all the years I read this series I really had Tommy Lee Jones in my mind's eye. I would be more worried if Captain Woodrow F. Call was after me than if Jed Clampett was on my trail. 







Breakfast of Champions
by Kurt Vonnegut
Basically you should just read this book if you haven't already. It's incredibly funny and sad at the same time. Along with Slaughterhouse-Five this book remains the quintessential Vonnegut work. It's satirical and and full of slapstick. It can be enjoyed on that level alone. Yet at the same time it can also be understood and enjoyed on a much deeper level. Much like Stephen King or other great authors Vonnegut had a singular voice, one that was so definitive and pleasurable that you can get lost in it and wonder why everyone doesn't write like that. I read this book when I was young, maybe ten or twelve? It was one of my parents' books but I can't remember which one. Either my parents had a different idea about my appropriate reading material because I was just so incredibly awesome and mature as a kid or they hadn't noticed I was reading it. Hmm. That's a good question. I'm leaning towards the latter probability. Breakfast of Champions is a book which has occasionally been targeted for banning in secondary schools. It is full of profanity, racial slurs, sexual activity,violence and frank discussions of reality, sexism, gender relations, environmentalism, racism, free will, and more sex. If you are easily offended or prefer that other people do your thinking for you then this book is probably one you should skip. Here's a brief example of Vonnegut's prose style:
"1492. The teachers told the children that this was when their continent was discovered by human beings. Actually millions of human beings were already living full and imaginative lives on the continent in 1492. That was simply the year in which sea pirates began to cheat and rob and kill them..Here is how the pirates were able to take whatever they wanted from anybody else: they had the best boats in the world and they were meaner than anybody else and they had gunpowder...The chief weapon of the sea pirates, however, was their ability to astonish. Nobody else could believe, until it was much too late, how heartless and greedy they were."
"Sometimes people would put holes in famous people so that they could be at least fairly famous too. Sometimes people would get on airplanes which were supposed to fly to someplace, and they would offer to put holes in the pilot and co-pilot unless they flew the airplane to someplace else."

There's more but I don't want to just quote the book. Who wants to read all the funny parts in a review. The brief outline of the story is that a Midwestern white businessman named Dwayne Hoover (his father changed the last name from Hoobler so people wouldn't think the family was Black) is slowly cracking up mentally. The whys and wherefores are up for debate. Hoover goes completely batty when he meets speculative fiction author Kilgore Trout (one stand in for the author, though the author himself later appears in the story) who is in town for a convention. For whatever reason Hoover is impressed with the financially unsuccessful Trout and views him as something akin to a prophet. He reads Trout's latest novel, in which the author, claiming to be God, tells the reader that the reader is the only human with true free will. Everyone else is just a robot. This was the wrong message for Hoover to get at that time as it sends him into a mordantly funny rampage. And believe it or not that is really a very small portion of the story. It's written in very short bite size paragraphs, similar to the style that James Ellroy would later make famous. This was a very quick read. I must reiterate that I am somewhat surprised that I got away with reading it so young. 

Anyway this book made me a Vonnegut fan for life. His description of how some whites see blacks as little more than obsolete farm machinery or how some women pretend to be dumber than they are as to not hurt fragile male egos was accurate. Vonnegut points out the absurdity of many things merely by stating them plainly and without explanation. i.e. "..Some people thought they shouldn't have to share anything unless they really wanted to and they didn't want to and so they didn't." or "Vietnam was a country where America was trying to make people stop being communists by dropping things on them from airplanes." I love his ironic tone. Hopefully you will as well. Vonnegut used absurdity for sharp political criticism.
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Denzel Washington:The Equalizer

May 31, 2014, 6:12 am
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Yeah. I'm probably going to see The Equalizer when it comes out this fall. It's directed by the same guy who did Training Day. It has the same feel as Man on Fire. The character in The Equalizer is a little bit past his use by date but that was kind of the point in the original TV series. People who dismissed an older man as not very dangerous often discovered they had made an unforgivably critical mistake. I wonder if Washington will have any love interest to work with as I would presume that Moretz won't be playing that role. Either way it's interesting how often storytellers use the tropes of "One Last Job" or "The retired gunfighter who has to pick up his guns" or "I can't leave my job because I am my job". These tropes work.



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